


Solar winds

by Starfate



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Happy Bella, Non-Human Bella Swan, Out of Character Bella Swan, Re-write, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Twilight Renaissance, more mythical and magical beings, or is she?, re-imagine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23702461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starfate/pseuds/Starfate
Summary: ‘So, what you’re telling me is that my best friends are respectively a vampire, a werewolf and a witch?’ Bella said incredulously.‘You got it!’ Alice cheered at the same time as Jake mumbled ‘A wolf shifter actually.’Bella threw her arms up in frustration. ‘Am I the only human around here or something?’Her friends shared a look.‘Jake?’ Alice prompted.‘Look Bella,’ Jake took a small step forward, his arms outstretched as if approaching a skittish animal, ‘about that.’_________A twilight re-write with more mythical creatures, Bella is happier, Edward less creepy, Alice is the same gift she always is. The first few chapters will follow the book but it will diverge from there.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale, Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale
Comments: 35
Kudos: 59





	1. First sight

**Author's Note:**

> I was a bit disappointed when I first read the books years ago, and I found out that the only magical entities were vampires and shifters. So, I decided to re-write the series, but with more Magic.  
> Also, I wish I could write Bella as funny as some people on here can, but I can’t. I will try my hardest though!

My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled all the way down. I always got incredibly nauseous in cars, but with the hot Phoenix air blowing in my face it was somewhat tolerable. I dreaded the flight, as I would be cooped up without fresh air for hours. My abhorrence of flying had been the reason that I hadn’t visited my father in Forks for years. The past few summers he had vacationed with me in California instead.

‘Bella,’ my mom said to me, before I got onto the plane. ‘You don’t have to go.’

‘I _want_ to go.’ I half-lied. I had always been a horrible liar and this one almost choked me up.

I loved the sun and the heat of Phoenix, but Forks did at least have a few positives. It was a lot greener for one, and although the village was a tad too small for my liking, I did prefer towns over big cities.

‘Tell Charlie I said hi.’

‘Of course!’ 

* * *

When I finally stumbled out of my plane, I was feeling the absolute worst I ever felt. I almost fell down the final steps, as my legs gave out under me. Lucky for me, Charlie was there to catch me.

‘It’s good to see you Bells,’ he said, smiling as he automatically caught and steadied me. ‘Still getting plane-sick I see.’

‘I swear it gets worse every time,’ I smiled weakly at him. ‘But it’s good to see you too dad!’

‘How’s Renée?’ He asked after giving me a slightly awkward hug. I would have to work on that.

‘Moms fine, she says hi. Can we per chance sit somewhere before I have to step into another vehicle?’

‘Of course Bells. Here let me carry that for you.’ He took my suitcase and guided me to a little bench outside of the airport.

I plopped on down and turned my face to the wind. Soon I was shivering but at least my legs didn’t feel like pudding anymore.

‘You do have warmer clothes with you, right?’ Charlie asked concerned.

‘A few, but I wasn’t ready to let go of the Arizona heat yet. I am ready to get into the car now, though.’ I jumped of the bench.

‘Alright, the cruiser is right over there.’

‘About that car I wanted you to get,’ he started once we were strapped in, but I interrupted him.

‘I told you I would rather not drive a car! I will just cycle everywhere, it’s not like things are far away in Forks.’

It would still kind of suck with all the rain, but school was like only 2 miles. I would be able to handle that. The first thing I had bought when I had decided to move to forks had been a rain suit after all.

‘Yeah no, I know. But I spoke with Billy, do you remember Billy Black down at La Push?’

‘Vaguely,’ I squinted my eyes at him, not trusting where this was going.

‘Well, his son Jacob likes to tinker with cars but also motorcycles…’ He trailed of, peeking sideways at me to gauge my response.

‘A motorcycle?! You would allow me to drive a motor?!!’ I would have jumped into his arms, had we not been in the car. I could not believe it, Charlie had always grumbled about them being unsafe.

Charlie looked straight ahead at the road, clearly not knowing what to do with my exuberance, but there was a small smile tugging at his lips.

‘Well, Jacob has to teach you first and you would have to always wear a helmet and you’re not allowed to drive when it’s icy of course.’ He began to rattle of his list of restrictions, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I would get to ride a motor! That was so badass. It would cost less fuel as well, which was a big pro, seeing as I was short on cash.

‘Where would I buy one in Forks though?’ I wondered aloud after a while.

‘Well, honey, I kind of already bought it for you. As a home-coming gift.’

Wow. Free. This day was getting better and better, it almost made up for all the travelling.

‘You’re the best! You really didn’t need to do that though.’ 

‘I don’t mind, I want you to be happy here.’

I wondered how hard it must have been for him to say that out loud, he was not very good at expressing his emotions.

‘I really appreciate it, dad.’ I decided to tone down my excitement for the remainder of the trip. I would have enough time to break down his walls in the next two years, I could give him some respite now.

Thus, for the remainder of the trip I stared silently out of the window.

It was absolutely beautiful. The plants were so vibrantly green, it almost hurt my eyes. It actually might have, if the sun had been shining. In Phoenix all plants that managed to survive the heat were a paler colour, as if they were bleached by the sun. I hadn’t been here for so long I had forgotten just how much I loved the moss covered- well, moss covered everything. I knew that my love of the forests would quickly lessen after being stuck inside for weeks, because of the unending rain. But for now, I enjoyed the sight.

Eventually we made it to Charlie’s place. No, our place, I reminded myself.

There, parked on the driveway of the small two-bedroom house, stood something decidedly motor shaped. It was a faded red colour, and it was probably very old, but I absolutely loved it.

I quickly jumped out of the car and ran over to it.

‘Wow, Dad, I love it! Thanks!’ I was unable to contain my joy.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ Charlie said gruffly, embarrassed again.

‘Can I take it for a spin?’ I looked up at him pleadingly.

‘No. You won’t be getting on that thing until you’ve bought the right protective gear. Plus, you haven’t even learned how to drive one yet.’

I could see from his expression that he would not budge on that one, so I dropped it. I thought it would be better to not mention that I had driven one before. For like five minutes in an abandoned parking lot, but still.

I gave my new motorcycle a loving pet on the saddle, before following Charlie in with the rest of my bags.

Taking all my stuff up to my room only took one trip. My room hadn’t changed since the last time I saw it, the same purple wallpaper and furniture.

‘Hé, dad?’

‘Hmm?’ He had already started making his way out of my room, undoubtedly to give me some space to unpack and get settled.

‘Could we paint my room next weekend?’ I liked purple, but it was too dark. If I had to live in a place without sun, I would need some brightness in my life. It was a good thing that I brought all my fairy lights from home.

‘Of course, Bells.’ And then he was gone.

I made quick work of unpacking my clothes, as I didn’t have that many. I decided to wait with decorating my room until after I had painted the walls.

I fell down on my bed, this was home now. It would take some time to get used to that. Yet, I felt a bit of satisfaction as I lied there. I had done a good thing, and I was happy that I would get to have some time to reconnect with my dad before going off to college.

* * *

I slept like a baby that night. Even tough the constant _whooshing_ of the rain and wind across the roof was new, it lulled me right to sleep. I had some vivid coloured dreams, but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember any of it.

It was misty outside this morning and I quickly dressed myself, it was chilly inside the house. I had my “looks” al planned out for the first week. Normally I didn’t care about my appearance what so ever but it was my first week and first impressions seemed to matter more than they should. So, I had devised a plan. The first day I would wear something I thought looked nice on me, and then I would gradually add more things that showed my interests, like band shirts and such, throughout the week. That way, people who liked the same thing as me would know, and maybe they would strike up a conversation with me first.

Breakfast was a quit affair. I was too busy being nervous, and Charlie was just naturally quiet.

‘I could drive you to school today if you want? You would be quite early because I have to go to the police station afterwards.’ Charlie offered.

I thought about his offer. Not having to cycle there on my first day, probably arriving all wet and miserable sounded good. But Charlie drove around in his police cruiser… Oh what did it matter anyway? Everyone knew each other here, everyone knew I was the daughter of the police chief, and I would probably get too much unwanted attention anyway. Being early was also only a plus, as I got to scope out the school a bit before classes and compose myself after driving.

‘That would be great, thanks.’ I would have to walk back, but I could just change back into comfortable clothing once I got home anyway.

* * *

When I got dropped off, there were only very few students already there.

Charlie wished me luck before driving away and I turned to face my new school.

There were multiple small buildings with a lot of greenery between them, so it was hard to gauge how big it really was. It couldn’t be that big. My old school held more people than the amount of people that lived in Forks after all.

I quickly made my way to a building that had a big “Front Office” sign.

I got a map, slips and instructions from the nice lady at the desk and I was out in the rain again, in search off my first class, English, and my locker.

I was the first to arrive after the teacher. He was merciful and let me sit in the back, I wouldn’t even have to introduce myself. I hoped the other teachers were just as nice.

Even though I was sitting at the back, my fellow students managed to stare at me throughout the lesson. I had expected some attention from being the new girl, but this was a bit much. I was used to being forgotten a lot. I did have friends back home, but it seemed like I somehow always faded into the background in Phoenix. Here I was pretty much front and centre. I gave it no more than a week though, tops.

The bell rang and a friendly looking boy with black hair leaned across the aisle to talk to me.

‘You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?’ He looked like the overly helpful type. Someone I could be friends with.

‘Yeah, although I prefer Bella.’ I smiled at him. I could feel the eyes of my other classmates on me.

‘Where’s your next class?’ he asked.

‘Uhm, let me check,’ I rummaged through my bag, ‘Government, with Jefferson, in building six.’

‘I’m heading to building four, I could show you the way?’ He offered.

‘That would be great-?’ 

‘Eric, my names Eric.’ He added.

‘Thanks, Eric.’

‘So, this is a lot different from Phoenix, huh?’ He asked.

I couldn’t help but laugh, ‘you could say that again.’

‘It doesn’t rain much there, does it?’

‘Hm, I think only three or four times a year? One time it rained like three days in a row, we thought it was the end of all times.’

‘Wow, what must that be like,’ he wondered.

‘Sunny,’ I laughed, ‘and dusty.’

‘You don’t look very tan.’

‘I’m part albino.’

He studied my face apprehensively.

‘I’m joking man,’ I rolled my eyes. I sure hoped that there were others here that did get sarcasm, or I would become miserable very fast.

Eric walked me right to the door of my building, pointing out the few interesting things on the way.

‘Well, good luck. Maybe we will have some other classes together.’ He sounded hopeful.

‘That would be nice,’ I waved at him and went inside.

My first class could have gone way worse. Maybe I could even sit with him during lunch, so I wouldn’t be on my own. This day was looking up.

* * *

I made another sort of friend during Trig and Spanish, Jessica. A very short girl, with curly black hair. It was pretty obvious that she was mostly talking to me because of the attention she got from being friends with the new girl, but I didn’t mind. She seemed genuinely nice underneath her bubbly façade, and she was definitely smarter than she led on. I had seen her notebook during trig, she knew what she was doing.

She invited me to sit with her friends during lunch and I gladly accepted. No need to awkwardly invite myself. There were two guys and one other girl already sitting at the table. Mike, a friendly Labrador like blond boy. Taylor, a real jock. And Lauren, who seemed to dislike me for no apparent reason.

Eric also came over together with a girl, who introduced herself as Angela.

‘Would you mind being a feature in the next school newspaper?’ Eric asked. Angela held up her camera.

‘I’d rather not, I don’t think I’m that interesting for an interview. Sorry.’

‘That’s alright.’ Angela smiled. ‘I love your necklace by the way.’

_Success!_

‘Thanks, you watch the show as well?’ We quickly fell into a lively conversation.

'So, are you going to do any extracurricular stuff?' Jessica asked after being done with being left out of the conversation.

‘Hey Tylor,' I called out to him. Lauren seemed almost offended that I had dared to address him. My dislike for her was quickly solidifying.

'Yeah?'

'Is there a female basketball team?'

'No.' He seemed to think that there shouldn't be one either, judging from his expression.

Well, there went that idea. I had played basketball for a bit back in Phoenix and I had quite liked it, even if I hadn't been that good at it.

'Maybe I'll do track and field then.' I mused. ‘Or I could take a crack at theatre.’ Theatre kids always seemed to have a lot of fun.

'We always have a spot for you with the school newspaper,' Angela offered.

'Thanks, but I don't think I would be a good reporter. I'm not very observant.'

'You can say that again, you haven't even noticed the Cullens yet,' Jess said, nodding to the other side of the cafeteria.

‘What are the Cullens?’ I asked, but I immediately understood what, or rather who, she was talking about when I followed her gaze.

They were breathtakingly gorgeous. A bit unhealthy looking maybe, but still extremely pretty. The small pixy like girl caught my attention first as she suddenly smiled at one of her tablemates, before walking out of the cafeteria with the grace of a trained dancer. The one she had been smiling at had perfectly styled bronze hair, an athletic build without being bulky like one of the other dudes at the table and a hauntingly beautiful face. He looked like the youngest of the group as he had a heavy dose of boyish charm, yet his expression was serious. He suddenly looked up from his untouched tray of food, his eyes first flitting to Jessica before falling on me.

I quickly looked away, embarrassment colouring my cheeks. It had been very rude of me to stare at them. I now knew all too well how uncomfortable it is to have eyes on you all the time.

‘Well? What do you think?’ Jessica asked with a giggle, probably mistaking my blush for something else.

‘They are very pretty,’ I admitted.

‘Yes!’ Jessica agreed with another giggle. She told me their names and that they were the adopted kids of Dr. Cullen and his wife.

‘Alaska! And I thought Forks was cold, they must have felt the opposite from me coming here,’ I laughed. I felt as if I was violating their privacy by hearing all this about them and tried to shift the conversation.

Jessica looked as if she had more to say about the Cullens but Angela loudly began about something that had happened in one of her classes and the conversation flowed from there.

At one point I thought I felt a heavy set of eyes on me, from where the Cullens were sitting, but I ignored it. I was probably getting paranoid from all the other people that were staring at me.

I was happy to find out that my next class was Biology II, together with Angela. 


	2. Gloom and sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bella meets two of the Cullens, and is left feeling conflicted.

We entered the classroom only just before the bell rang, because I had forgotten one of my notebooks in my locker. New school, same old me.

Turned out I wouldn’t be able to sit next to Angela, as everyone had assigned seats here as well.

‘Are you already abandoning me?’ I pressed a hand to my chest.

‘It is time that you learn to stand on your own two legs, young padawan,’ Angela said solemnly, before pushing me to the teacher with a smile.

I scanned the class for free seats as I got the slip the teacher had to sign out of my bag. The only empty seat I spotted was next to Edward Cullen.

Just as I looked at him, he suddenly looked up and our eyes met. The look in his jet-black eyes send ice straight into my veins, it was a mixture of incredible anger, confusion and… pain? The intensity of his glare almost sent me stumbling back.

_What the actual fuck._

The teacher signed my slip and told me to go sit next to Edward.

I didn’t dare look at him again as I silently took my seat next to him, making sure I was as far away from him as I possibly could. All my instincts were screaming at me to get away from him.

I tried to come up with a reason, any reason, for his sudden antagonistic attitude towards me. I could somewhat understand an unwillingness to befriend me, as I had been staring at him during lunch, but apart from that? We hadn’t even talked to each other yet. This couldn’t have been about me, right? Maybe he was angry about something else and I just looked at him at the wrong time.

I tried and failed to focus on the lecture, not only had I already studied this subject, there was also this ever-growing urge to peak at Edward.

I made it half-way through the lesson before I gave in and glanced at him through the veil of my hair.

He was leaning away from me, just as I was from him. So maybe his angry glare had actually been directed at me.

His whole body was rigid and he had his left hand clenched into a fist, tendons standing out under his pale skin. It had actually been pain I had seen in his eyes, his whole face seemed distorted with it now.

I felt a sudden pang of worry, what if there was something seriously wrong with him?

‘Are you okay?’ I softly whispered.

His head whipped towards me, his expression a mix between anger and panic this time.

I took a split-second decision and raised my hand.

‘Sir, Edward is unwell. I think someone should take him to see the nurse.’ My cheeks started burning as I could feel the attention of the whole class on me as I called out to the teacher.

Mr Banner didn’t have time to say anything before Edward had already grabbed his backpack and stormed out of the classroom.

The door fell closed with a loud bang.

There was a shocked silence for a bit, before the students erupted in excited chatter.

I sat frozen in my chair, staring blankly after him.

Mr Banner cleared his throat, looking beyond confused, as he turned to me.

‘What was wrong with him?’

‘I don’t know, but he seemed to be in pain.’ I ducked my head under the pressure of my classmate’s stares.

‘Well, if he could still walk, I guess he can find the nurse on his own. Alright, everyone, pay attention.’

It took quite some time before the whispers died down, but the lesson ended without any more incidents.

Edward did not come back.

I noticed that he had left his notebook behind, as I was packing up my own stuff.

‘Hey, Isabella, right?’ A semi familiar male voice asked.

I looked up to see it was the cute blond boy from lunch. We hadn’t had the chance to talk yet, as we had been seated on opposite ends of the table. He was smiling at me in a friendly way, a welcome change from the past hour.

‘Bella,’ I corrected him, smiling. ‘And your name was… Mike?’

‘Yes,’ he seemed thrilled that I had remembered his name. ‘Do you need any help finding your next class?’

‘I have P.E now, I think I know where the gym is.’ I didn’t want him to go out of his way for me.

‘That’s my next class, too.’ He seemed happy about the coincidence.

The people of this town must be extremely bored, if a new person brought so much excitement.

Angela came up to us. ‘I have History now, so see you tomorrow?’

‘Yes, see you tomorrow!’

At this point the teacher had already left the room, so I stuffed Edwards notebook in my bag. I would give it to one of his siblings or something.

I walked to the gym together with Mike. Thankfully, he was a chatter. I was pretty exhausted of the whole day by now, so it was nice to have someone who could keep the conversation going. 

He had moved here from California six years ago, so we bonded over our love of the heat and sunshine. He was apparently also in my English class and he promised to sit next to me, next time.

Just as we entered the gym, he asked, ‘So, did you stab Edward Cullen with a pencil or something?’

‘I didn’t. I doubt that even if I did, he would go as far as storming out of the class because of it,’ I frowned.

‘Yeah, but even before that he was acting all strange toward you. Stranger than he usually is I mean.’

Well, there went my feeble hope that it wasn’t me he had reacted to so badly. 

‘We haven’t even exchanged a single word with each other! What could he possibly have against me?!’ I couldn’t help but be a bit angry about it. It made absolutely no sense.

‘Don’t think too much about it. He’s a weird guy. If he can’t appreciate your company it’s his loss.’ He winked, before disappearing into the dressing room.

Of course, I did think about it. A lot.

I thought about it while I sat out P.E. on the bleachers. I had been “allowed” to sit this one out while the coach found me a uniform for the next lesson. I had honestly rather taken out some of my frustration by hitting volleyballs.

I thought about it walking home as well.

But by the time I reached the house, sopping wet, I had decided that whatever Edwards problem with me was, I wouldn’t let it get to me.

I had actually made some tentative friends today, I hadn’t been forced to eat my lunch on the toilet, and even my classes and teachers seemed to be all right.

I would not let one, stupidly beautiful, teenager ruin my mood.

Thus, when Charlie asked me how my first day had gone, I could truthfully and cheerfully say that it had gone better than I had expected.

* * *

The next day of school was better and worse.

Worse because I got just as many stares as I had gotten the day before, but this time accompanied with whispers. The whole school was buzzing with gossip about Edwards sudden departure yesterday, and apparently, I was part of some of the rumours surrounding it. I knew the rumour mill in a small town would be more intense, but this was honestly astonishing. 

When we sat down for lunch, Jessica told me all the gossip and tried to pry all the details of what actually happened out of me. She was quite disappointed when I had very little to tell her.

Most rumours were simply speculations as to what had been wrong with Edward, but some also dipped into his antagonistic behaviour to me. It hadn’t been only Mike and I who had noticed that.

My favourite rumour, however, was that Edward and I both had a secret agent past, and we had been a part of opposite agencies.

Sadly enough, that one had been put forward by Angela, and she had been joking. She did promise me to spread that particular rumour though.

My day was better because I now had people to talk with in every class and I didn’t have to walk to any of my classes on my own.

Especially Mike was very attentive, making sure I wouldn’t get lost by sticking by my side for most the day. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I had a very good sense of direction, and thus did not actually need his help.

People where a lot nicer to me here than in Phoenix, and I was determined to enjoy it while it lasted.

It was also better, and I was a bit ashamed to admit it, because Edward wasn’t there the whole day.

Whatever the rumours were, I still had a hard time believing his escapade was because of me. And him staying away from school supported that.

His parents would never allow him to stay home for something so trivial, mine wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t get away with faking illness when he had a doctor as a father.

A very good doctor at that, if I had to believe my dad.

It made feel guilty though, because if he actually had something bad going on, I shouldn’t be happy about it.

Guilty or not, the fact remained that I could sit in Biology in peace.

* * *

When I arrived at my visual arts class the next morning, I immediately noticed the smallest of the Cullens sitting at the back.

Today I had actually remembered to bring Edwards notebook, and now seemed as good a moment as any to hand it off. It would spare me from going up to the Cullens lunch table at the very least.

I took a deep breath and marched up to her before I could lose confidence.

If she glared at me as well, I might actually start crying.

‘Uhm, hi.’ I mumbled.

‘Hi!’ The girl looked up from her sketchbook with the brightest smile I had ever seen, gold eyes almost beaming. ‘Isabella, right?’

‘Bella,’ I corrected almost automatically, my brain and heart both trying to catch up with the unadulterated happiness and friendliness she directed at me. ‘Ehm, you’re Edwards sister, right?’

‘Yes, I’m Alice.’ She stuck her hand out, and I shook it a bit dazed. She was the polar opposite of her brother.

‘I- I have Edwards biology notebook. He forgot it Monday.’ I quickly ducked my head, letting my hair fall in front of my face as I dug in my bag for the notebook.

‘That is very nice of you Bella,’ she said sincerely as she took it from me. ‘Want to sit next to me?’

She patted the table next to her, and I nodded mutely.

I got another brilliant smile directed at me as I sat down, ‘I feel like we’re going to be good friends.’

I couldn’t help but answer her smile with one of my own. Her bubbly happiness was infectious.

I could feel the other students staring again. Didn’t they have anything better to do?

‘Sorry if this is none of my business, but is Edward okay? I am honestly a bit worried.’ Technically not a lie, I never said what I was worried about.

That night I had dreamed of his black hateful eyes, staring at me as if I was a prey. I had woken up in a sweat.

‘He will be, but he’ll have to stay home for a bit. Got something nasty going on with one of his organs. Can’t remember which one, I’m terrible at biology.’ She pulled a face. ‘But don’t worry, nothing live threatening. Carlisle will patch him right up!’

I opened my mouth to ask more questions but the bell rang and the teacher began her lesson.

We had to draw our partners and when I saw what Alice had drawn, I almost dropped my own sketchbook. It was an almost lifelike rendition of me, but I was laying down in a field of flowers, looking more relaxed and content than I could remember feeling for a long time.

‘Alice, this is beautiful! How long have you been drawing?’ I gasped.

Alice laughed, a delightful sound that reminded me of little bells. ‘A while, but show me yours!’ 

I was almost ashamed to show her my work. I wasn’t bad at drawing, far from it, but I had nothing on Alice talent.

‘Oh! You gave me a flower crown!’

‘It seemed fitting, you remind me of a pixie,’ I blurted out before I could think better of it.

‘Aw thanks! Can I have it?’ She looked up at me with big puppy dog eyes.

‘If you want?’ I couldn’t quite understand why she would want to have it, but I was unable to refuse her anything when she was looking at me like that.

‘Yes! Here, you can have mine, then we’re even.’ She grinned as she pushed her drawing in my hands.

‘I’ll see you around, Bella.’

‘See you.’ I waved stunned as she seemed to almost dance away.

I looked down at the drawing in my hands, only now seeing the little message Alice had written there to me.

I was in a significantly better mood the rest of the day, my nightmare long forgotten. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting to get a better grasp of who my Bella is :D 
> 
> This won't be a Bella/Alice fic, but I've always had a soft spot for Alice, so she will be making frequent appearances :)


	3. Painting Palls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, I had examns and then general quarantine unproductiveness happened. But I finally wrote the next chapter! Also, midnight sun?! Funny how it comes out during the Twilight renesance. Now I've been told about Meyers problematic fiews so I don't know if I can support it. BLM. Anyways, I hope everyone is staying safe and on with the chapter.

When lunch came around, Alice waved enthusiastically at me when I entered the cafeteria.

Which, naturally, led to another round of interrogation from Jessica. I didn’t really feel like answering any of her questions and just danced around them. Jessica gave up after rather quickly, but I was pretty sure that was only because she was seated next to Mike.

‘For someone who doesn’t like attention, you’re not really doing a good job at staying unnoticed,’ Angela teased me after lunch.

‘Hey! Nothing of what I’ve done here, would have been enough to interest anyone back in Phoenix.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Also, look what Alice gave me!’ I carefully pulled out the drawing that I had put between the pages of my sketchbook.

Angela let out a low whistle, ‘she certainly can draw.’

‘Jep, she must have practised a lot.’

Angela snorted, ‘I bet.’

She took a closer look at the drawing and then pointed at the message that was crawled in the margins in a neat little cursive.

_“Don’t worry about my brother, it wasn’t anything you did. Xx your future best friend”_

‘That’s nice of her. But you did befriend Alice then? This is the first time I’ve seen her voluntarily interact with anyone besides her family.’

‘Really? She seemed extremely friendly to me,’ I frowned. ‘I wouldn’t call us friends, yet. But I do think I want to; she was very nice.’

Angela made a bit of a face at that, although she tried to hide it.

‘Angela! I expected better from you,’ I admonished her. I had thought that at least Angela would not succumb to small-town prejudice.

‘You’re right. Sorry,’ she said easily. ‘Let’s get a move on, I don’t feel anything for being late.’

* * *

The remainder of the week went by in a flash. Edward stayed absent, but Alice told me that Carlisle thought he would be well enough to come back to school next week. Judging from her expression, she was absolutely certain that he would.

By Friday the stares had become significantly less, but everyone stayed just as friendly. Mike even invited me to the outing to La Pushes beach he was planning two weeks from now, and I happily accepted.

The mention of La Push also reminded me that I had to ask Charlie when I could start motorcycle lessons with Jacob. I wondered how much he had changed since the last time I saw him. Probably a lot. I certainly had.

Turned out that my dad had thought that I would want a little more time to truly settle in and have some time for myself the first weekend here. That was why he had already made plans for Billy and Jacob to come and watch a game the following weekend and he himself was working most of this weekend. Thus, I would be home alone, as good a time as any to start with painting my room.

When I got downstairs on Saturday morning, I found money for groceries on the table plus some extra to buy paint. Charlie was such a sweetheart. I decided to call Angela to ask if she wanted to help me with painting. 

‘Yeah, of course! But only if you buy the paint at my dads’ shop,’ was Angela’s teasing response once I had awkwardly made my request.

I laughed, relieved that I hadn’t just made a fool out of myself. ‘Sure, is there even another store that sells paint in Forks?’

‘Nope. I could meet you in the store and then I can drive you back to your house?’

‘I had not yet thought about how to transport the paint buckets without a car, so that would be perfect!’

I heard Angela laugh at her end of the line.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand why you don’t want a car. What time do we meet?’ 

‘I’ll have to do some grocery shopping first, so after lunch? 2 o’clock?’ I suggested.

‘Fine by me!’

‘Cool, see you then!’

‘Till then, bye.’

I decided to first do some homework and clean the house a little. Charlie wasn’t necessarily messy, but his cleanness standards had definitely dropped over the years of living alone.

When everything was presentable again, I jumped on my bicycle to get the groceries.

It was in the snack isle when I heard a familiar voice call out to me. 

‘Hey Bella!’

‘Hi Alice, also getting some snacks?’ I asked, not knowing what else to say.

‘Yep, I was feeling properly bored and I was thinking about bribing my siblings with snacks so they will watch some movies with me,’ she whispered conspiratorially to me.

‘But what are you up to this weekend?’ She continued in a normal tone of voice.

‘I’m going to paint the walls of my bedroom together with Angela, so we will be needing sustenance.’ I gestured at the chip’s bags in my shopping car.

‘Oh, that is so much fun! It really helps you settle in, doesn’t it? I really enjoyed helping Esme, my mom, with remodelling the house when we moved here as well.’

‘Ehm, would you like to join us?’ I blurted before I had thought it through. ‘You don’t need to say yes if you don’t want to!’ I quickly added, afraid that I had been too forward. I barely knew her and although she was being incredibly nice, we weren’t exactly friends yet.

‘I would love to!’ She beamed. ‘I would have to change my clothes though,’ she remarked with a look at her, I was guessing very expensive, outfit. ‘Would that be okay?’

‘Of course! I agreed to meet Angela at her parents shop at two to pick up the paint, so we should be back at my place around two thirty?’

‘That works for me. See you in a bit then!’ She waved and made her way to the counter.

‘Bye,’ I waved back.

* * *

‘Bella! Over here!’ Angela’s disembodied voice called.

‘Where?’ I spun around to where I thought her voice was coming from but I didn’t see her.

‘Down here,’ she laughed from where she was sitting on the floor, sorting through some merchandise.

‘What are you doing there?’

‘Just finishing up a chore my dad gave me, some of these are expired so I have to throw them away.’

‘Can I help?’

‘Nah, I’m almost done.’ She put all packs of some kind of adhesive back in the rack, safe for two. ‘There we go.’ She stood up and patted the dust of her knees. ‘So, paint?’

‘Yes, and some rollers. The other stuff my dad already has.’

‘Alright, the painting supplies are this way,’ she began leading me through the aisles. ‘Will we be needing some primer as well?’

‘My walls are now a dark purple and I want them to be white and sky blue, so I think we do?’ I had helped my mom paint the windowsills and like one wall, and that pretty much summed up my painting experience.

‘Sky blue? So basically gray,' she joked. 'No, but then we definitely need it! We will only be able to paint with the primer today though, as that will need to dry first,’ she warned me.

‘Yeah, I was already expecting that. I’m already super grateful that you agreed to help me get started,’ I smiled at her.

‘No problem! I would have been hanging around doing nothing but being bored, if you hadn’t asked me.’ She grinned back at me. ‘So, how big is your room and how high is your ceiling?’

‘Ehm, standard hight I think? And about 12 squared meters? I didn’t measure it, sorry.’ I answered a bit sheepishly.

‘That’s alright, we will just go with your guess.’

Angela helped me get everything we would need today, but also for when the primer was dry and we loaded everything in her car. It wasn’t until we were already driving back to my house that I remembered that I hadn’t told Angela about Alice yet.

‘Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you, but I ran into Alice when I went to buy us some snacks. She is coming to help as well. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not, more helping hands is always good,’ she smiled, but I could see some tightness around her eyes.

‘Great!’ I decided to play dumb, if she truly did have a problem with Alice, she would have to say it.

A familiar silver car pulled up, just as we stepped out of Angela’s car.

‘Hey Alice! Perfect timing.’ I greeted her. She was now wearing an oversized, paint stained shirt, and yet she still managed to look like a supermodel in it.

She laughed, ‘Yes, and here I was thinking I would be way too early. Hi Angela, how are you doing?’

‘Fine, and you?’ Angela replied curtly as she began taking the supplies out of the trunk.

‘Here let me take that,’ Alice effortlessly picked up the big bucket of primer.

‘Wow, you’re strong. Where are you hiding all those muscles?’ I was impressed, her small frame belied her strength.

Alice just laughed again and began walking to the door. I rushed to grab some of the supplies as well and open the door for Alice.

‘Let’s just immediately put them upstairs,’ I suggested and led the girls to my bedroom.

‘Tada, my room in _some_ of its glory. Make yourselves at home, I’ll grab us something to eat and drink.’

I don’t know what had happened in the few minutes that I was downstairs, but when I got back to my room the tense atmosphere was completely gone. Alice was laughing about something Angela had said, and Angela seemed completely relaxed as she was lounging on my bed.

Whatever happened, I was glad that it did, as I rather liked both girls and it would have sucked if they in turn didn’t like each other.

When I said goodbye to them almost four hours later, I was exhausted but also extremely happy with how the day had gone. All the walls now had a coating of primer, Angela had done a great job in estimating how much paint we would need, so there was only a little left. We had talked and laughed, and danced on the music on the radio as we worked. Alice had not only given me her number before she left, but she had also exchanged numbers with Angela.

Moving to Forks was proving to be a better decision then I had dared to hope. The only downside was that I had to sleep on the couch tonight. The paint fumes were pretty bad and it was raining too hard to open a window and air out my room.

In Phoenix it wouldn’t have taken long for any paint to dry, but there I would have only had my mom to help me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a lot with this chapter, so if you have any feedback it would be appreciated!  
> 


	4. Anaphase and apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit bigger than the others, and I probably wouldn't even have started on it yet if a good friend hadn't pestered me about it <3\. So you can thank (or blame ;p) her.  
> There is a big dose of teenage awkwardness in this chapter, so beware ;) 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy!

Sunday went by pretty uneventful; I finished my homework and explored a small part of the woods behind the house, it was very green and mossy. I ate dinner with Charlie and afterwards we watched a game together. I didn’t understand what was going on at any point in time, but dad was more than happy to explain it to me. He seemed to enjoy spending time with me like this, so I decided to do it more often. It probably became more fun once I got to know the game and teams better as well.

On Monday morning, I ran into the problem that was my wardrobe. It was pretty chilly and I didn’t have that many warm clothes. In the end I decided to put one of my thin hoodies over a long-sleeved t-shirt and hoped for the best.

The weather gods were not in my favour.

‘Wow, it’s snowing!’ Mike said as we walked out of our first lesson of the day.

It was the first real snow that I had seen in as long as I could remember.

I looked up in awe at the twirling white fluff and immediately got a snowflake in my eye.

It hurt, but I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.

‘What are you laughing abo-‘ Mike began to ask, but he was interrupted by a snowball to the back of his head. Which naturally let to me laugh even louder.

Mike narrowed his eyes at me in mock annoyance, but soon it was his turn to laugh as I got hit in the side.

We both turned to see where the snowballs had come from.

‘Eric?’

‘Eric.’

He was walking away from us, a little too fast and in the wrong direction for his next class.

We immediately bend over to scrape together our own snowballs and then the game was on.

I arrived at my next class out of breath, with painfully cold hands, and pieces of snow melting down my back. I was shivering, but it had been my first snowball fight ever, so it was definitely worth it. If my clothes hadn’t dried by the time school was out, I was going to have to ask one of my new friends if they could drop me of at home. Cycling through this weather with wet clothes, was not my idea of a good time.

During Spanish Jessica told me it was the first snowfall of the season, and it was tradition to hold a massive snowball fight during lunch. I was pretty hyped about it, especially since Jessica and I made a pact to gang up on Mike. Apparently, he had stuffed a snowball right down the back of her shirt when they were already inside, the year prior, and she was out for revenge.

We got called out by the teacher multiple times during class, because we kept giggling about all kinds of nefarious plans we had for Mike and a host of other people Jessica had to get even with.

By the end of class, I silently vowed to never get on Jessica’s bad side.

It was thus to my utter disappointment that it had started to rain by the time lunch came around. The snow was slowly dissolving into puddles.

Mike met up with Jessica and I, just as we entered the cafeteria and immediately began complaining about the rain.

Jessica and I exchanged a look, and I had to bite my lip in order to supress a smile.

The poor boy was completely unaware that he had dodged a bullet, or rather a snowball.

I looked over at the Cullens table as we went to stand in line for food and almost walked into Jess.

Edward was back.

And he was looking at me. Not the withering stare I was dreading, but somehow curious. He then cocked his head and gave a bit of an awkward apologetic smile, and I thought my heart would stop. He truly was the most gorgeous person I had ever seen. Even with his hair damp from the rain he managed to look like he just walked of a photoshoot, all the Cullens did. I was pretty sure I just looked like a drenched cat.

I managed to awkwardly smile back, and gave him a little wave that I immediately regretted.

_Could the earth split open and swallow me now please?_

I quickly turned around and threw myself in Jess and Mikes conversation with an enthusiasm it probably didn't warrant.

'Bella, Edward is staring at you,' Jess giggled halfway through lunch.

I had taken the chair facing away from the Cullens table so I wouldn't have to deal with it. But now I couldn't exactly secretly glance over at him.

'Staring how? Does he look angry?' I asked her anxiously, still not convinced that he didn’t secretly hate me.

Alice had ensured me that his behaviour hadn't been because of anything I had _done_ , and I didn't think she lied about that. Yet, she had carefully avoided saying that it wasn't _because_ of me. I couldn't help but shake the feeling that it did have something to do with me somehow and my gut feeling was rarely wrong.

'No. He is frowning, but more in a thoughtful way.' She told me, shooting not so subtle glances over her shoulder.

'He probably just feels guilty about how he acted towards you last week,' Angela said smartly, never even looking up from the book she had propped up against her pencil case.

'Well, you'll find it out after lunch. You have Biology with him next right?' Jess asked, eyes sparkling with the anticipation of new gossip.

I nodded, my stomach turning itself into knots. I forced myself to eat a little more of my lunch but gave up pretty soon.

 _It's absolutely ridiculous to be so heavily influenced by a boy who hasn't said a single word to you yet, get it together girl!_ I reprimanded myself. I was fully aware that I was overthinking everything.

Lunch ended and I followed Angela and Mike to class. Edward wasn't there yet and Angela gave me a comforting pat on my arm before taking her own seat. Mr Banner handed out light microscopes and boxes full of slides. There were still a few minutes left before class started and I rifled through the slides, they were tagged as onion mitosis. We probably had to identify the phases, I had already done that in Phoenix and I grabbed my notebook for a quick revision.

‘Hello,’ an unfamiliar voice said quietly.

I whipped my head up, clutching one hand to my chest. I had been so absorbed in what I was doing that I hadn’t notice that Edward had slipped into the seat next to me.

‘Hi, you scared me.’ I laughed awkwardly at the teen.

‘Sorry, that was not my intention,’ Edward for his part was still sitting as far away from me as possible but he was smiling this time. A kind of crooked smile that gave me difficulty breathing and I quickly looked away.

‘My name is Edward Cullen,’ he continued, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself last week. Alice has given me a stern talking to, for being so rude to you. That was also never my intention and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me?’ His musical voice sounded completely sincere, but it also held a tinge of humour.

‘Yes of course!’ I quickly replied, daring to only briefly look at him. His expression was sincere as well, a small smile played around his flawless lips, but his eyes were careful. Alice must have gotten quite mad at him. ‘It would be quite rude at my part to hold something like that against you, while you were sick. Are you feeling better now?’

‘I’m glad. And yes, I feel a lot better, thank you.’ I could hear him smiling but stubbornly held my gaze on my notebook.

I felt incredibly guilty for thinking badly about him before, he was actually very nice and polite. Had I really just imagined the malice directed at me before? 

Thankfully, Mr. Banner started class at that moment. We indeed had to identify the different phases of mitosis, but without our textbooks.

I had already set up the microscope beforehand so we only had to put one of the slides in.

‘Ladies first?’ He smiled his crooked smile at me again and I could feel my cheeks flush.

‘Sure.’ Since I had done this before, I was quite confident when I proclaimed it to be prophase.

‘Do you mind if I look at it as well?’ He asked, but he was already sliding the microscope towards his side of the table.

‘Of course not,’ it was a lab, we both had to look at it.

He only examined the slide for a split second before agreeing with my earlier assessment. He wrote down “Prophase”, in the most beautiful flowy cursive, on our worksheet.

‘Have you learned calligraphy?’ I asked as I changed out the slides. ‘You have beautiful handwriting.’

‘Thank you, and I did yes,’ although his voice still held the same politeness it had possessed since the beginning, it now also held caution. Did he expect me to make fun of it?

‘That’s so cool! I wanted to learn it at some point as well, but my mom said that I had enough hobbies already,’ I grinned as I looked through the microscope. ‘Anaphase.’

I slid the microscope towards him and our hands touched for a brief moment when he took it from me and I jerked my hand back. Not because his hands were literally ice-cold, because they were, but because the moment out hands touched it felt as if an electric current had passed through us.

His eyes widened and he quickly withdrew his hand as well.

‘Static electricity,’ he muttered before writing down Anaphase after only a glance through the microscope.

He put in the third slide, and taking no longer than the previous two times he identified it as interphase. He slid the microscope towards me, being careful not to touch me again.

I had thought that he had only glanced through the microscope before, to give the impression of having looked as well. But no, he could actually identify the slides that quickly, as it was indeed interphase.

He wrote it down, when I told him I agreed.

Between the two of us, we were finished in no-time, significantly quicker than any other couple.

‘So, why was your mother against you learning calligraphy?’ Edward asked once we had properly put away all slides and the microscope. He seemed genuinely interested.

‘Because I’m always busy with three projects at the same time. At that time, I was heavily into watercolour painting, woodcarving and knitting. My mom was absolutely right to tell me no, between her and my hobbies there was simply no more space for more art supplies.’ I brushed my hair out of my face, glancing up at him.

He was looking at me again, an inexplicable look of frustration in his eyes.

Why?

‘Did you get contacts?’ I blurted out in an attempt to dispel the sudden tension that had appeared between us.

‘No?’ He asked puzzled.

‘Oh, your eyes look different from last time, that’s all.’ I mumbled awkwardly, fervently wishing for the earth to swallow me again.

My silent prayers were not heard and the stone tiles of the classroom stayed solid. Rude.

‘Must be the light,’ he shrugged, looking away.

_Lie._

I instinctively knew he was lying, the stiff line of his shoulders only solidifying that. Last time his eyes had been black, that I knew for sure, those eyes had come back in my nightmares. His eyes just now had been golden. He hadn’t lied about not having contacts though, did the change have something to do with his illness? Why would he lie about that?

Mr. Banner came to our table to see why we weren’t working and saw our filled worksheet.

‘So, Edward, didn’t you think Isabella should have had some time with the microscope as well?’

I opened my mouth to tell him that I had done my fair share, miffed that he thought I wouldn’t have been able to identify the slides. But Edward was faster.

‘Actually, _Bella_ identified three of the five. Sir,’ he looked slightly irritated at Mr. Banner as well. Seeing him come to my defence made my stomach do a weird little flip.

Mr. Banner looked skeptically at me, ‘have you done this lab before?’

‘Not with onion root,’ I supressed the urge to cross my arms as it would only make me look like a rebellious teenager. I did not want to make enemies with the teachers.

‘Whitefish blastula?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, you were in an advanced placement program in Phoenix?’

I nodded.

‘Well, then I guess it’s good you two are lab partners.’ He mumbled something else as he walked away, but I couldn’t make out what.

‘So, a pity the snow is gone, right?’ Edward said after a beat of silence.

‘Yeah,’ I sighed, ‘I was looking forward to the big snow fight.’

‘Don’t worry, it will snow again. A lot.’

‘Snow is fun and very pretty, but I must say I prefer the Arizonian heat,’ I admitted to him. My hoodie was still slightly damp, which did nothing for my thermo regulation.

‘Then Forks isn’t really the best place to be.’

‘No, I guess not,’ I shrugged.

He cocked his head, looking at me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. A lock of his bronze hair falling across his forehead. He looked like he stepped right out of a renaissance painting, and my breath hitched.

‘So why did you come here?’ He didn’t say it in a mean way, more like he was genuinely interested in my reasons.

I had to look away to get my brain functioning again so I could actually answer him. He was so pretty it was just plain unfair.

‘It’s a bit of a long story,’ I hesitated. I didn’t really know him yet and he probably didn’t really want to hear my boring story, he was just being polite.

‘We have still quite some time until the end of class,’ he said looking at the clock that hung on the wall above the door. ‘But if you’d rather not talk about it, I completely understand,’ he added gently.

‘Well, my mom remarried,’ I started, my voice coming out sounding way sadder than I had intended.

‘And you don’t like her new husband?’ He guessed.

‘No! No Phil is very nice, and he makes mom happy.’

‘Then why did you leave?’ He was the first person here to actually ask me this, and I was a bit touched by his attention.

‘Phil moves around a lot for his work, he plays ball. Mom wasn’t going to leave me behind to travel with him, but she would have been sad to have him leave so soon after they got married. So, I made that decision for her. And now I get to spend some quality time with my dad as well, so that is nice.’

‘That was very sweet of you. Any chance that I have heard of that Phil? My whole family are a bit of baseball fanatics,’ he grinned, clearly trying to lighten the mood a little, which I was grateful for. Even though I had made the decision myself, and the people here had been far nicer to me than they had back in Phoenix, I still missed home and my mom.

‘I don’t think so, he isn’t that good, he plays minor league.’

‘Ah, then I wouldn’t have heard of him no. Pity, I could have hounded you for an autograph otherwise.’

I laughed, ‘he would probably be over the moon if I asked him to send a autograph for a friend.’

His eyes widened a little at my words, a soft smile appearing on his lips. ‘You know what, ask him for a photograph anyway. I might just get into watching minor league.’

That was so incredibly sweet of him that I could have hugged him right then and there had we not still been in class, and had he not still been leaning away from me.

‘I will,’ I beamed at him instead.

He answered my smile with a brilliant one of his own.

I was glad that Mr. Banner started the discussion about the lab then, as I could turn to the bord and hide my inevitable red cheeks behind a curtain of hair. That man, even though I didn’t like him much at all, did have impeccable timing.

When the bell rang, Edward said goodbye and gracefully and swiftly left the room, before I had even the chance to say goodbye back.

I sat there, stunned, until Mike and Angela came up to my table.

‘That was terrible, they all looked the same,’ Mike whined. ‘You’re lucky t have Cullen as a partner.’

‘I am perfectly capable to do my own work Mike,’ I said warningly.

‘Yeah, Bella is like super good at biology. You should’ve heard her this weekend, she had all kinds of fun facts about animals,’ Angela supported me.

Mike flushed, ‘sorry Bella, I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘That’s alright, I know you didn’t. Sorry for snapping at you,’ after Mr. Banners sceptical looks I had become a bit touchy about it.

He made a gesture as to wave it off. ‘Cullen seemed friendly enough today,’ he changed the subject.

‘Yeah, he was nice,’ I nodded.

‘I don’t think I have ever seen him talk or smile that much at anyone outside of his family,’ Angela mused as we went to put on our raincoats.

Mike wasn’t as talkative as he normally was, when we walked to Gym together. But he seemed to bounce back during P.E., we made quite the team.

I ended up declining his offer to give me a ride home. I had put my clothes over the heater in the changing room during P.E. so they were toasty and dry, and it wasn’t snowing anymore either.

I passed Edward, who was leaning against his car, as I walked towards my bike.

He looked pretty smug about something, and he waved happily at me when he saw me.

I waved back, feeling the stares of many of the other students in the parking lot on me.

The cold air on my face, as I cycled home, did little to cool my cheeks as I ran the events of the afternoon through my mind again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ironically, I wrote the snow scene while there was a heatwave in my country. I was absolutely melting. I would have commited murder for some snowballs down my back.


	5. Snow and secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well guys, buckle up, it's a long one. Thank you IIliah for running a spelling/typo check for me :)

I woke up the next morning earlier than I normally did. Something was different. Everything seemed to be just a little bit more defined, brighter. It was as if someone had cranked up the contrast on a photograph.

Excitedly, I hopped out of my bed and ran to the window.

The world outside looked as if someone had sprinkled powdered sugar on everything. The rain of yesterday had been frozen solid, coating the needles on the trees in ice, that fractured the light in beautiful patterns. Ice flowers bloomed on my window.

_Wow_

I shivered, my cotton pyjamas too thin to stave off the morning chill.

But, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find the long-sleeved shirt I had worn yesterday anywhere. I did have another one of course, but that one was thinner, so that sucked.

I would have to layer up. Especially if the snowball fight would actually go on today.

I bounded down the stairs with an excitement and eagerness to go to school that did not only have to do with the expected snowball fight. No, if I was being completely honest with myself, it was also because I would get to see Edward Cullen again. And that was pretty stupid, especially since I barely even knew him and our first interaction still frightened me a little.

But, with him I felt _seen_ in a way I had never been seen in Phoenix. The odd beautiful boy actually seemed to be interested in who I was as a person. My other friends here were great as well of course, but somehow, Edward felt different.

Charlie was already done eating breakfast when I came downstairs, but he had made eggs and toast for me.

‘It’s going to be cold today, so you should eat enough,’ he said gruffly when I commented on it.

‘Thanks dad.’ I happily started to devour the food.

‘It is extremely slippery outside, so I’d rather not have you cycling. I could bring you today?’ he offered a bit awkward.

‘I truly appreciate the offer dad, but I think I will walk today. I want to enjoy the snow before it turns into grey mush,’ I grinned at him.

He nodded once and left for work.

When I went to put on my snow boots, I discovered a pair of oversized gloves and a thick scarf stuffed into the sleeves of my coat. My throat suddenly felt tight. I wasn’t used to being taken care of, and Charlies concern warmed my heart.

Three steps out of the door, and I was already slipping. I somehow managed to keep upright by wildly swinging my arms around. I was still glad that none of the neighbours were outside, because I must have looked quite silly.

I somehow managed to make it to the end of the solid ice driveway, alive. At least the sidewalk was dusted with snow and a lot safer to walk on.

I enjoyed the soft crunch of my boots on the fresh snow, as I walked to school. The rest of the world seemed quieter, more peaceful, due to the cushioning effect of the snow. I turtled my neck so I could bury the lower half of my face in the scarf. Happiness was bubbling up inside my chest, making my lungs feel like they were too big to fit inside my ribcage.

At the last minute, I decided to cross through the parking lot to go to art class, hoping I could hit one of my friends with a surprise snowball. They wouldn’t be expecting me to be there, so it might just work.

I had just emerged from between two cars, holding on to the corner of a truck to keep upright, when I heard an odd sound.

It was a high-pitched screech that was quickly becoming painfully loud.

I looked up, startled.

The first thing that I saw was the horrified face of Edward, who was standing 4 cars down from me. I turned towards the sounds, seeing similar expressions of shock of the faces of the other students, before I saw what had captured their attention. A dark blue van was spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot, tires locked and squealing against the brakes.

It was coming right at me at a terrifying speed.

I didn’t even manage to take a single step before hearing the metallic crunch of the van wrapping around the truck bed. Something hit me in the stomach, but not from the direction of the van. I hit the ground, hard, my head bouncing off the ice. A cold and solid weight was pressing down on me, pinning me to the ground.

I managed to blink away the stars behind my eyes just in time to see the van curling around the end of the truck, still spinning towards where I was laying.

A low swear right next to my ear, managed to pull my attention away from oncoming death. Two pale white hands shot out in front of me, stopping the van a few inches from my face.

I blinked, and the hands were gone, leaving decidedly hand shaped imprints behind.

Where those hands had gone became clear very soon as I was half lifted from the ground and dragged away with a twist that made my legs ragdoll along.

Another heavy thud and the van came to a stop against the truck, glass shattering and showering down on the asphalt where just a second ago, I had been laying.

First, I could only hear the loud thudding of my own heart, second where the screams. Many of which were yelling my name.

But a frantic low voice in my ear, cut through all of the noise. Edward, who was half clutching me against his chest, stared down at me in a panic.

‘Bella? Bella are you alright?’

‘M’fine,’ I managed to mumble, feeling dazed. I weakly struggled to get out of his iron grip, feeling the sudden need to sit on the solid ground and just breath.

‘Be careful,’ he warned as he gently lowered me to the ground, ‘you hit your head pretty hard.’

‘Hmmhmm,’ I placed my head between my knees and took a shuddering breath in. The cold air burning in my lungs, confirming that I was still alive. I was shaking now, realisation settling in about just how close to death I had come.

‘Easy now,’ Edward murmured, his hand a comforting weight on my back.

I looked up, causing me to wince, he was right, I had hit my head pretty hard. ‘How in the …’ I shook my head, trying to clear it from my racing thoughts. ‘How did you get to me so fast?’

‘I was standing right next to you, Bella,’ his face showed nothing but mounting concern for me.

I looked him right in his gold coloured eyes, and I almost got disoriented by the force of his gaze. I grid my teeth, which send a fresh wave of pain through my skull. He was lying again; I just knew it.

It was at that moment that a teary faced crowd descended upon us. Someone called to get Tyler out of the van and others for an ambulance.

One girl instructed us not to move.

Edward was clearly of the same opinion as his hand was now resting on my shoulder, undoubtedly there to hold me down if I tried to get up.

Not that I was planning to get up, my legs felt like jelly and my hands were shaking. I clenched them into fist, digging my nails into my palms. I still had a slew of questions for Edward, starting with,

‘You were standing by your car, why are you lying about that?’

‘No, I was not,’ his expression turning hard.

‘I saw you.’ I set my jaw. This argument somehow felt extremely important to me right now. The adrenaline had kicked in and he had _lied_ to me. _Again._ It made me incredibly, and probably unreasonable, angry.

Around us was a flurry of activity, the wail of an ambulance, adults shouting orders.

‘Bella, please,’ he pleaded, his voice suddenly unbelievably soft.

‘Why?’

‘Just trust me.’

I narrowed my eyes at him, but before I could demand he further explained himself, the van was pulled away by ambulance personnel and the P.E. teacher.

I was loaded up on a stretcher when Edward told them that I had hit my head. I couldn’t help but glare at him when they put on a neck brace. Edward actually had the audacity to laugh at me.

He himself had somehow managed to worm his way out of having to lie on a stretcher. Stupid guy, with his stupid pretty face.

When I exited the little shelter between the cars, I was almost wishing the van had actually hit me. The whole school was watching how I got loaded into the back of the ambulance.

My eyes fell on Edwards family. Alice looked extremely worried at me, the blond boy looked worried at Alice, but the others did not look worried at all. No, the burly one looked disapproving and the beautiful girl straight up murderous.

There was no visible concern for Edwards well being at all.

The memory of Edward holding off the van with his bare hands flitted through my mind.

‘Bella!’ the panicked voice of Charlie shook me out of my thoughts.

_Great, of course dad has to arrive while I’m on a stretcher._

‘I am fine dad, just bumped my head,’ I reassured him. ‘Edward was just being dramatic.’

Not believing my assessment, he started talking with the EMT. I tuned them out, trying to order my thoughts and make sense of what had just happened. 

I spend the whole trip to the hospital turning everything over in my mind. Trying to find an explanation to what had happened that wasn’t completely insane.

I came up with absolutely nothing.

At the hospital, they carried me to the emergency room. Edward managed to get out of being put there as well, so I was alone for a brief moment when the nurse left. I made good use of that and quickly disposed of the neck brace. It made me feel trapped.

I had only just thrown the stupid thing under my bed when the doors opened again. Another stretcher, swarmed with hospital personnel was carried in.

It was Tyler Crowley, his head wrapped with bloody bandages, small cuts littering his face. He looked awful. Yet, he still managed to anxiously stare at me, as he got put on the bed next to me.

‘Bella, I’m so sorry!’

‘Don’t worry about it dude, I’m fine.’ The nurses started to unwind the bandages, exposing a deep gash that ran along his temple. ‘You look way worse, how are you?’

He ignored me, looking at me with haunted, unseeing eyes. ‘I thought I was going to kill you! I was going too fast, I hit the ice wrong and…’ He shuddered, trying to pull himself together.

‘Don’t worry Tyler, you missed me, it’s fine,’ I tried to sound as soothing as possible.

I was sure that I was going to have nightmares about the events of today, but Tyler was probably going to need therapy or something.

‘How did you get out of the way so fast? You were right there, I was sure I was going to hit you, and suddenly you were gone.’

‘Edward tackled me out of the way,’ speaking off, my ribs were actually quite sore. I hadn’t noticed it before, as I had been preoccupied with other things.

‘Who?’ He looked extremely confused.

‘Edward Cullen.’

‘Cullen? I didn’t even see him, everything happened so fast.’ He shook his head, which earned him a warning from the nurse who was cleaning his head wound. ‘Is he okay?’

‘Yes, he seemed completely fine.’

I then got wheeled away to get my head X-rayed. Which was pretty unnecessary if you’d asked me.

I was right, there was nothing wrong with me, just a big bump. The X-ray looked cool though. They let me keep a copy of the picture, so that was neat. 

I had to be seen by a doctor before I was allowed to leave, so I was brought back to wait in the ER.

Tyler started apologising again, and no matter what I told him, he wouldn’t stop.

That was until another target appeared.

‘Hey, Edward. I am so sorry-‘ Tyler began.

Edward just shook his head, holding up a hand to stop his rambling.

‘I’m fine, no harm no foul.’ He flashed a wide grin at Tyler, sitting down on the edge of his bed. Facing me.

‘So, what’s the verdict?’

I felt irritation bubble up again, as I looked at his perfectly symmetrical, smirking face.

‘I got a bump on my head, and that’s about it. I felt worse from the ambulance ride, to be completely honest,’ I shrugged, trying to push that irritation down. ‘They won’t let me go though. Why are you not confined to a bed like the rest of us?’ 

‘It’s all about having the right connections,’ he winked, making absolutely no sense. ‘But don’t worry, I came to bring you your freedom.’

Before I could ask him what he meant, an extremely handsome blonde man in a doctor’s coat came walking in. He looked like he belonged on a filmset. He was pale and looked very tired, with dark circles under his eyes. Going of my dad’s description, this had to be Edwards father.

‘So, Miss Swan, how are you feeling.’ His voice was dreamy. I could easily picture all the nurses developing a crush on this man, some patients as well probably.

‘Pretty good, got a bump on my head but that’s about it.’ I answered, hopefully for the last time. I just wanted to go home.

‘Your X-ray does look good, but how is your head feeling? Edward said you hit it pretty hard and seemed confused afterwards.’

I threw a scowl in Edwards direction; I knew exactly what I had seen. I was only confused about the _how._

Dr. Cullen prodded my skull with cool and careful fingers.

‘It’s quite alright,’ I started to answer but winced when he touched to bump in question.

‘Tender?’

‘A little, I’ve had worse.’ I shrugged.

Edward was chuckling with a patronizing smile which had me gladly throwing him out of a window, had I been able to.

‘Well, you can go home, your father is in the waiting room. Come back if you are feeling nauseous or start feeling dizzy. You should take it easy for today.’ Was Dr. Cullens verdict.

‘Yes, thank you!’ I quickly stood up from the bed, glad that I was finally allowed to go home.

I had stood up too quickly and I faltered for a second, Edward caught me by my arm to steady me.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay for a little while longer?’ Dr. Cullen asked.

‘No, no! I just stood up too quickly,’ I assured him.

He looked at me with concern but did end up signing my chart.

‘You’ve been extremely lucky.’

‘Yes, it was all thanks to Edward standing right next to me,’ I put on a big fake smile, staring daggers at Edward when the doctor looked away.

‘Oh, well yes,’ Dr. Cullen agreed with a mumble, hastily walking over to Tyler.

My intuition flickered; he was in on whatever was going on as well.

‘Speaking of which, could you accompany me to the waiting room Edward?’ I asked with the same fake smile.

‘Of course,’ his voice was pleasant, but his demeanour far from. He could probably guess what I wanted to talk about.

He strode out of the room, his shoulders a hard line.

‘Thanks again doctor, and bye Tyler, get well soon!’ I called over my shoulder as I almost had to run to catch up with Edward.

The moment we were outside, in the hallway, I dropped the happy act. Edward too, had abandoned any pretence. The sudden unfriendliness he was radiating caught me a bit by surprise, but it did help me feel better about my own slightly irrational anger towards him.

‘What do you want?’ He asked, sounding annoyed.

‘What do you think? I want answers.’ I rolled my eyes. I had been planning on thanking him for saving me first, now he could choke on it. 

‘I don’t know what you want answers about, I was standing next to you and pulled you out of the way. End of story.’ His voice was cutting.

‘ _Don’t lie to me_ ,’ I hissed, a sudden spike of anger threatening to make me cry. I just couldn't stand people lying to me. 

He looked taken aback by the force behind my words, but he shook himself.

‘You hit your head, you must have imagined things,’ he insisted.

‘Tyler didn’t see you either,’ I bit back. ‘And I certainly did not imagine those hand shaped dents in the side of the van either.’

He flung up his hands, ‘I saved your life. What more do you want from me?’

The resentment in his voice made me feel cold. I straightened my back and looked him straight in the eye.

‘Fine.’

‘Fine?’ He rocked back on his feet, suddenly looking unsure.

‘If you don’t want to tell me the truth, then don’t. I’m done here.’

I turned and walked away. For a split second he looked like he wanted to call after me, but he just shook his head and headed back into the emergency room.

When I arrived at the waiting room, half the school was there. _Great._

Jessica spotted me first, ‘Bella!’

I immediately got swarmed by people, asking me how I was and what happened.

Luckily, police Chief Swan came to the rescue. A few words from him and people parted like the red sea.

‘How are you?’ He put a protective arm around my shoulders and started escorting me out of the hospital and into his waiting car. 

‘I’m fine, doctor Cullen confirmed that I’m fine,’ I reassured him again.

I waved through the car window at my friends who had followed us out. Angela looked pale and Jessica was holding onto Mikes arm like a life raft. I would have to send them a text once I got back.

We drove home in silence. Charlie was obviously very distraught, clutching the steering wheel a little too hard. I didn’t know what to say to him. I just hoped that he didn’t blame himself for not insisting to bring me to school, because that sounded like something he would do.

It wasn’t until the car turned up the driveway when Charlie finally spoke.

‘Um… You’ll need to call Renée,’ he hung his head guilty.

_Ohno._

It wasn’t until an hour later that I could finally put the phone down.

Charlie was sitting in the armchair next to my couch, looking at me anxiously.

‘It’s alright dad. I’m alright.’ I sighed, sinking into the cushions.

‘You really scared me Bells.’

‘I know, it scared me too.’ I smiled at him. ‘How about we order food tonight and watch some games together?’

‘That sounds nice,’ he smiled back, before quickly disappearing into the kitchen. Probably to hide his embarrassment. 

When I checked my phone a while later, I had a whole bunch of texts from my friends. I spend some time answering them. In the end it was decided that Angela and Jessica would visit after school to bring me my homework and notes.

Jessica flung herself at me the moment I opened the door for them and crushed me in a big hug.

‘I was so scared when they got you out of the wreck,’ she sobbed into my chest.

I awkwardly patted her on her back, looking towards Angela for help, but she looked seconds from tears as well.

It wasn’t until that moment that I felt just how high my own emotions had been. I had been ignoring them to not make Charlie worry even more. 

We all ended up sitting on the rug in front of the couch, crying a lot, as I told them just how close the van had come from squashing me like a grape.

It was really nice to be able to talk them about it. They both hadn’t been close by enough to see any of it happening, so I couldn’t exactly tell them about Edward. But it was still nice. 

Their concern for me, even though they hadn’t known me for that long, almost made me cry again.

They ended up staying for quite some time, talking about all kinds of things. Apparently, the outing to the beach was post-phoned, first because of the weather, but now also because of the accident.

‘Oh, and the date for the spring dance is decided as well!’ Jessica suddenly remembered when I had made tea and handed her a mug. ‘So, who are you two going to ask? It’s girl’s choice!’

‘Hmm, haven’t thought about it yet,’ I confessed.

‘Me neither.’ Angela shrugged. She didn’t seem very excited by the whole thing.

‘I think I’m going to ask Mike,’ she said brightly, before suddenly sobering, ‘as long as you don’t mind of course?’ 

It took a second to realize she was looking at me.

‘No? Why would I?’ I looked at her quizzically, and then over at Angela, who just shrugged.

‘You sure? You weren’t planning on asking him?’ She hesitated, but already looking happier.

‘Of course, I’m sure! I think you two would make a great pair,’ I smiled at her.

‘Oh, that’s good then. How about you Angela? You could ask Eric?’

Angela made a face, ‘No thanks. I don’t think I will go at all. I think it’s stupid that you have to have a date to go.’

‘Really? You _have_ to have a date?’ I asked. That did sound pretty stupid.

‘Yes, you do. But that’s part of the fun!’ Jessica insisted.

‘We could always go together as friends? That way we can skip over the whole drama of finding a date, and we would have a lot of fun,’ I proposed to Angela.

Angela looked thoughtful for a second, ‘You know what? That doesn’t even sound like a half bad idea. That way my mom won’t nag me about “missing out on once in a lifetime experiences” either.’

I beamed at her, I had never gone to any of the school parties back in Phoenix, so I was actually looking forward to going with some friends.

‘I do expect flowers though,’ Angela winked.

‘Deal.’

Jessica looked between us with a bit of a frown, ‘I’m glad you two are coming, but how am I supposed to gossip about your dates with you now.’

‘Oh Jess, you’ll just have to gossip enough for the three of us,’ I laughed.

‘The burdens that are placed on me,’ Jessica sighed, dramatically falling back into the cushions. We all bursted out laughing.

Angela did remember to actually give me my handouts and the notes she and others had made for me, once they left.

I waved them goodbye until they were both out of sight.

‘Those are some good girls, good families as well,’ Charlie smiled when he got back downstairs. He had only poked his head into the living room once to say hi, when the girls had come. The rest of the time he had been hiding away in his office, scared off by the tears.

‘They are,’ I agreed, leaving through the pages of notes. There were notes for every class. My eyes fell on a sheet with a neat curly handwriting. Alice’s handwriting.

Suddenly the realisation hit me, whatever was going on with Edward, was probably also going on with Alice.

Alice, who had the same beautiful but inhuman golden eyes, who lifted heavy paint buckets as if it was nothing.

Alice, who was my friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with the car crash and the argument. Im not good at that stuff, so I heavily borrowed from the source material. But we are finally approaching the moment that the story will start to diverge from the origional more, so I'm excited about that.


	6. Two can play that game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was I extremely sleep deprived while writing this? Yes.

That night, I slept absolutely awful.

My fitful dreams were filled with flashes of the accident, I would startle awake just moments before the van would hit me. I must’ve woken up a dozen times, only for the dreams to start anew, when I managed to fall asleep again.

One thing I had come to realize, when I was lying awake somewhere around five in the morning. Whatever was going on with the Cullens, they were probably not bad people. The dad was a doctor, Alice was the personification of a ray of sunshine, and Edward had saved my live.

Edward had probably panicked after exposing himself as a non-ordinary human, and had been acting out of fear in the hospital.

That still didn’t excuse his blatant lies, though. Trying to make me feel like I was delusional, was a dick move.

But it did explain his attitude.

They were entitled to their secrets, I supposed, as long as it didn’t hurt anyone. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to try and find out what it was.

With that fresh determination I drifted off to sleep again.

I slept until my alarm went off, some meagre 2 hours later. This time, I woke up to the phantom sensation of cool arms wrapped around my waist, instead of the impact of a van.

I took a long, hot shower to wash off the cold sweat from the nightmares.

Sleep deprivation was pulling on my limbs and head, making me feel sluggish and dull. The shower helped, but only a little.

I still couldn’t find my favourite long-sleeved t-shirt anywhere.

I dug through the laundry and upturned my room, but it was no-where to be found. I noticed that some socks were missing as well.

I let out a deep sigh, I would have to leave an offering to the sock goblins this evening. I knew it was stupid and superstitious, but it always seemed to work. I probably just looked a little better and in more unlikely places due to placebo effect. But as her mom loved to say “It ain’t stupid if it works”.

I contented myself by wearing an old Christmas sweater I found in the back of one of the drawers. It was seriously too big, so it had probably been my dad’s. It was a nice dark blue colour, with snowflakes on it. I wondered if it was in bad taste to wear something with snowflakes, but I shrugged it off. I had been the one in the accident and I was fine with it, Tyler better not be in school now anyways. That headwound had looked nasty.

Charlie wished me good morning with a smile that turned into a frown when he saw my face.

‘Didn’t sleep well?’ He asked worried.

‘Not really, but that’s okay,’ I rubbed my eyes. I had pretty big dark bags under my eyes, which only stood out more because of my pale skin. ‘The teachers probably won’t say anything it if I’m a bit absent today.’

‘Are you sure you already want to go to school today? I could call?’

‘No, that’s fine. I want to see my friends.’

Charlie nodded but kept shooting me worried glances over breakfast.

I sighed into my coffee. I would probably have to deal with a lot of extra attention today. And it had just started to lessen from me being a new arrival.

‘I will drive you to school today,’ Charlie stated once we were done eating.

It wasn’t a question this time, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. If it eased his mind, I would gladly deal with the slight nausea the trip would give me.

School was even worse than I had expected. There were a lot of people staring and I had to recount my story so many times that I could probably tell it in my sleep.

“I’m fine, I only have a bump on my head.”

“Edward tackled me out of the way.”

And “Yes, it was very scary.”

My friends stuck to me like velcro the first few lessons.

Mike and Eric had apparently seen me almost getting crushed, and they needed to tell me their perspective multiple times. Neither of them mentioned Edward at any given point, they hadn’t seen him. Any attempt to shift the focus off me, and onto Edward for basically being a hero for saving me, was ignored. Only Angela mumbled something about him being less bad than she had thought when she thought I couldn’t hear her. Mike just kept telling me how glad he was I hadn’t died whenever there was a lull in the conversation.

I managed to rid myself of my entourage after the last class before lunch. They were all very sweet, but I was also extremely tired, so my people tolerance was getting pretty low.

Alice appeared at my elbow as I was dumping my books in my locker.

‘Hello Bella,’ she seemed nervous as she bit her lip and rocked back and forth on her feet.

‘Hi Alice,’ I kept my voice carefully neutral and put my last book in my locker before turning towards her. She was looking up at me with golden eyes, a few shades darker than Edwards had been on Monday.

Edward had probably told his family that I knew something was up. I just hoped that this didn’t mean Alice wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore.

‘We’re friends, right?’ Alice echoed my own thought back at me. Her anxious expression was so starkly different from her normal happy disposition, that it honestly upset me a little to see it. 

‘If you still want us to be, then yes.’

Alice struck like a cobra, slender arms wrapping around my torso and squeezing the air out of my lungs.

‘I’m glad,’ she looked up at me, a cute pout on her lips, ‘and never ever scare me like that again!’

I awkwardly petted her on her head, ‘Yes, yes. I will try my best.’

‘Good.’ She let go of me. ‘See you Bella!’

‘Bye Alice,’ I watched her step away with a bounce in her step and shook my head. At least one Cullen still liked me. I would try and make amends with the moody one after lunch.

_Lunch_.

I sighed and made my way to the cafeteria, where my friends were already seated.

To my surprise it was Jessica that fended off people that came to get the story.

‘You probably don’t want to be constantly reminded about it.’ She stated, when she saw me looking.

I threw her a grateful smile.

‘You could always be interviewed by the school paper and get the story out, so you don’t have to tell every single person first-hand,’ Angela suggested.

I looked up at her, appalled, but she was laughing at me.

When lunch ended, I dragged my feet going to Biology. Dreading the conversation I was about to have. Edward unnerved me, in a way no one else ever had. It didn’t help that I felt inexplicably drawn to him, not only because of his looks. 

Edward wasn’t there yet, when I entered the classroom. I bounced on my chair, anxiously waiting for him to arrive.

'Sorry for how I reacted yesterday,' I blurted out, before he had even time to sit down. I was afraid that if I waited even a second, I would lose the nerve to talk to him.

He sat down, as far away from me as possible, and quirked his eyebrow at me. He looked frustrated about something again, but at least it wasn't the resentment fromyesterday. Or the murder glare from the first day. Damn, the bar was low when it came to this guy.

'I was very stressed because of everything and I took it out in you, and I'm sorry for that,' I fidgeted with the cover of my notebook. 'And thank you for saving me.' I mumbled so fast and softly that I was surprised that he even caught it.

'Apologies accepted, and you're welcome,' the feintest of smiles played around his lips.

I wasn't done yet.

'And it's alright if you don't want to tell me the truth, I won't ask for it again. Just-' I took a deep steadying breath, 'just don't lie to me okay?'

The smile was immediately gone, his face an emotionless mask.

‘Not this again. You hit your head, you imagined things.’

I balled my fist, my nails digging into my palms. _So far for trying to be friends_.

‘I know what I saw.’

Now he did smile, but it wasn’t a nice one. ‘No one will ever believe you.’

I saw red.

It was with a herculean power of will that I managed to keep still and not punch him in his perfect teeth.

Class began and I refused to look at him even once.

We didn’t say anything to each other, even when we had to do a lab together.

When the bell rang, he was gone even faster than the previous times.

_Well, if he didn't want to be civil, two can play that game._

‘Hey Angela,’ I walked up to her table, where she was still putting away her things.

‘What’s up?’

‘About that feature you were talking about over lunch,’ I tried to look innocent, ‘I might actually take you up on that.’

She narrowed her eyes at me, ‘Why do I get the feeling that your change of heart has to do with the absolute zero temperatures you and Cullen were giving off during class?’

I shrugged, ‘Probably because it does.’

‘He is not going to like it, is he?’

‘No.’

The grin that appeared on Angela’s face was downright evil.

The next day, there was a school newspaper extra featuring an exclusive interview with both me and Tyler. It also covered, extensively, the heroic role Edward had played, bar the super human stuff of course. The whole school was buzzing about it.

I had the misfortune of crossing paths with Rosalie in the course of the morning. Her seething glare made me almost stumble into Jessica.

Emmet however, grinned at me.

_Huh, maybe there are still two Cullens who like me._

‘You would think that she would appreciate her brother getting the recognition he deserved right?’ Jessica frowned.

‘Yeah, I don’t understand it either Jess.’ I said with grim satisfaction.

Alice did ask me, during art, if I could maybe not bully her favourite brother.

I told her that he had started it.

She just sighed and muttered something about how this was so not how she had thought this was going to go. She didn’t seem to be too upset with me though, because we did walk arm in arm to our next class.

I did regret my actions a little bit when I had to sit through Biology the next two days, with a seriously ticked off Edward next to me.

He didn’t say anything, he just glared at me every once in a while.

I held my head high. I had done nothing wrong, after all. He had never asked me to keep quiet about the incident, and I had only given credit where credit was due. If he had wanted to stay low-key, he should have said something, ~~or have been less of an ass~~. ~~~~

Altogether, I was glad when it was finally weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bella is a very nice person, but you don't want to piss her off.   
> Also, should I place language warnings? There is not a lot of cussing, but I don't know what is normally done.


	7. Motors and Myths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a short one... I'm tired

Friday evening, Charlie told me that he was going fishing in the morning and that in the evening Billy and Jacob would come over for dinner.

‘We’re going to grill my catch on the barbeque,’ he explained.

‘Ah, I should make a lot of side dishes then, so we won’t go hungry,’ I grinned at him.

‘You little! What has become of today’s youth? No respect, not even for their own father,’ he shook his head with a frown.

I was worried for split second, that I had actually hurt his feelings, before I saw his moustache twitch.

He was generally so quiet that I sometimes forgot just from who I had gotten my sense of humour.

‘Nope,’ I replied sunny, popping the P.

We finished our meals and Charlie went to bed immediately after doing the dishes. I did not understand why anyone would want to get up so extremely early, only to stare at the water for hours. I’d rather go hiking.

I did remember, before going to bed, to grab a shot glass (something I would never have expected to find in my fathers’ kitchen) and the squirt bottle of honey. 

I felt rather stupid when I filled the shot glass with honey, placed it on top of the washing machine and whispered the words I had spoken so many times before.

‘Dear sock goblins, please take this honey instead of our socks,’ I clasped my hands together in front of me and made a little bow. ‘If you could also return me my long-sleeved shirt, that would be greatly appreciated as well,’ I added for good measure.

This little ritual was something I had started doing once every few weeks when I was still very little. I had been convinced, when I was younger, that there were these little people living in our house. They had skin like the bark of a tree and their eyes were a bright spring green, when they were happy at least, otherwise they would burn like smouldering coal. And when they were displeased with us humans, they would steal our socks and cause other general mischief.

I had been around five when I had told my mom that these little creatures had to be appeased. Renée being Renée had not even questioned this and happily bought a jar of honey for me. I would also make flower crowns to give to them once in a while.

Every time I had offered something, it would be gone the next morning. Once, there had even been little footprints in the spilled laundry detergent.

I now knew that it must have been my mom doing that, but back then it was all the proof I needed. She had even told my dad about it, because even when I visited him for the summer, the offerings where never there when I woke up.

I also knew I was too old to still be doing this, but things just always ended up getting lost, until I did the little ritual again.

That was the problem with superstitious stuff, once you started doing something, it was very hard to stop.

* * *

I woke up late. It was already close to 12 when I finally stumbled into the kitchen to get myself some cereal. I had been far more tired than I had thought. The events of the last week had proven to be a bit much after all.

Charlies cruiser was not there when I peaked out of the window. He was probably staying at the reservation until dinner time then.

While tiredly chewed on my breakfast, I decided that I would continue with the painting process today. It wasn’t exactly sunny outside, the cloud cover was still ever present, but it seemed to be at least a little thinner. I judged that at the very least, it wouldn’t start raining any time soon. So, I would be able to air out my room properly.

Now I would be working with different colours, I actually had to tape along the corners of the wall. When I pushed my bed away from the wall to make space, the long-sleeved shirt that had been missing was laying in the dust, where the bed had been. The shirt gave off a really nice smell when I picked it up carefully to not stir up too much dust in the progress. Weird.

I couldn’t help but laugh because of the timing. ‘Thanks sock goblins!’

When I put the dusty shirt in the washing machine, the shot glass of honey was empty and sparkling clean. Charlie must have found it this morning, before going fishing.

I had almost finished with painting the second of the two walls light blue, when I heard two cars turning into our driveway. A look on the clock told me that it was only four o’clock. They were earlier than I had expected.

‘Bella, I’m home!’ The gruff voice of my dad called a few moments later. ‘Billy and Jacob are here as well!’

‘I’ll be down in a few, almost done!’ I called back.

When I came bounding down the stairs a few minutes later, they were all already seated in the living room.

‘Hey there Bells, this is Billy and Jacob Black,’ he gestured to the two dark haired strangers.

Well, not complete strangers. As they turned to look at me, I did faintly remember the older man. The wheelchair was new though.

‘Hey, nice to see you again!’ I extended my hand for Billy to shake, before noticing that it was covered in paint. ‘Oh, I might have to wash my hands first.’ I said a bit sheepishly, dropping my hand again. I should probably change my shirt as well, now that I was thinking about it.

The old man just smiled at me, ‘Nice to see you again as well, Charlie has been talking non stop about you, ever since you decided to come live here again.’

‘Hey!’ my dad weakly protested; he was looking really embarrassed. 

‘Well, who wouldn’t if someone as great as I was coming,’ I grinned. I had almost tossed my hair for added effect, but thought better of it. Getting the paint out of my hair would be a nightmare.

A deep laugh made me switch my focus to the youth, Jacob. He was seriously tall, especially for his 15 years old. He had long hair in a low ponytail and laughing brown eyes, set above high cheekbones.

‘Hey I’m Jacob,’ he held up his fist. With a quick glance to see which of my hands was the cleanest I gave him fist bump.

‘Hey, thank you so much for fixing up my motor cycle and agreeing to teach me how to drive!’

‘No problem,’ he smiled brightly. ‘Have you already tried her out?’

‘No,’ I sighed, ‘dad wouldn’t let me.’

‘Be glad I’m allowing you to drive that death machine at all,’ Charlie called from the kitchen, where he was getting beer for him and Billy.

I exchanged a look with Jacob, he gave me a consoling pat on the shoulder.

‘Hey, how about you kids go set up the barbeque?’ Charlie suggested as he passed the bottles to Billy, who expertly popped off the cap with the wheel of his wheelchair.

‘Sure.’

I washed my hands and guided Jacob to where the barbeque was hidden behind boxes of stuff.

It was still very cold out, but hauling the heavy boxes around made me work up a sweat. Jacob didn’t seem to have any problems, carrying two stacked on top of each other as if it was nothing. I envied boys and their testosterone.

‘So, are you enjoying Forks so far?’ He asked.

‘Yeah, people are really nice here. I do miss the sun though.’ I took the opportunity to set down the box I was carrying. It made a heavy thud when it hit the ground. Just what did my dad keep in these? ‘Don’t you ever get sick of the rain?’

‘Sometimes, it rains a _little_ less on the reservation than it does here luckily.’

‘That’s good to hear! Friends of mine are actually planning to go to First beach in a few weeks, so it would be nice if the weather was okay.’

We had finally cleared the barbeque and we both grabbed a side of it.

‘First beach is nice, there are pretty tidepools there. Are you going with them?’

‘Yep, and I think I vaguely remember those tidepools.’ I had fallen into one as a kid once, but they were absolutely awesome.

We set the barbeque down in the grass, Charlie came outside to point us the place he wanted it.

‘Oh nice, I’ll make sure to drop by,’ Jacob promised.

‘That would be great!’ I beamed at him. Jacob was so easy to talk with, I hadn’t felt awkward in his vicinity even once yet. I would probably see a lot of him once my dad deemed the roads safe enough for a motorcycle, so it would be great if we could become friends.

‘Who are you going with?’ My dad asked.

I told him and he nodded approvingly. He probably knew all their families. I was glad that even though he had lived alone for so many years, he at least had a lot of friends under the populace.

‘Is that Cullen girl not going?’ He suddenly asked, ‘I remember that you had her over once, Alice right?’

‘Alice yes, but I don’t think so. The other kids aren’t really friends with the Cullens. But I could ask her,’ Angela wouldn’t mind, and the others would turn around.

I saw Jacob freeze in the corner of my eyes, but when I looked at him, he was smiling as if nothing was the matter. Did the rumours about the Cullens even reach the reservation?

‘You should.’ He then went back into the house and muttered barely audible, ‘the people in this town…’

I turned towards Jacob the moment Charlie was out of earshot.

‘So, what do you have against the Cullens?’

‘What do you mean?’ He looked slightly panicky.

‘I saw how you reacted to their name, so what’s the story?’ _Wait,_ ‘They aren’t racist right?’

‘No, no, no!’ Jacob hastily said. ‘There are just some old stories in my tribe about a family called the Cullens, my dad just takes those a bit too seriously,’ he rolled his eyes.

‘What kind of stories?’ My interest was definitely piqued.

He nervously glanced to the house, ‘I’ll tell you another time alright? They’re tribe legends, so I’m not supposed to talk about them with other people. But just know that even if you did invite that Cullen girl, she would say no, they’re not supposed to come onto the reservation.’

‘That’s rather cryptic,’ I raised my eyebrow at him.

He shrugged, ‘Just don’t mention them in front of my dad, please.’

‘Sure, as long as you tell me the full story at some point,’ I winked, fully prepared to drop it if he really didn’t want to talk about it.

‘Deal,’ he flashed me a smile before following after my dad.

Dinner was nice.

I never ate a lot of fish when I was living with my mom, but it was very tasty smoked.

It was weird to see Charlie so openly happy, he seemed like a whole different person. I had always wondered how my mom and Charlie had ever become an item, but if my dad had been this sunny around my mom, I could understand.

He was also a whole lot less mature. 

Jacob and I exchanged a fair share of exasperated looks over our fathers antics, especially when they hinted that we might become more than just friends.

Jacob had only just turned 15, he was a nice guy but he was also practically a child. At our age, an almost 2-year difference was pretty big.

He was very mindful and polite for his age though, so my motor lessons promised to be fun.


	8. Cold shoulders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long guys. It's not a long chapter, but I wanted to post something. It keeps me motivated.

Monday rolled around and I rolled out of my bed, groaning.

I had slept really bad again, weird vivid dreams of being chased through the underbrush of a too green forest.

I was somewhat looking forward to school, especially PE, as I would be able to get rid of the nervous energy that had slowly taken a hold of me during the weekend. Plus, Edward was probably less mad by now, he’d had a whole weekend to get over himself.

That was where I was wrong, Edward had not gotten over himself. Not even close.

He ignored my diplomatic “hello” and refused to even look in my general direction during class. I almost preferred the angry glares.

As I was a firm believer of “What goes around comes around”, I vowed to ignore him from that point forward as well. Which was actually kind of annoying, as I wanted to uncover his secret. But I could wait, I was a patient person.

The next morning, in art class, I was greeted by my favourite Cullen wearing an astonished expression.

‘That shirt, how do you have it?’

‘What do you mean?’ I looked down in confusion and I saw that I was wearing the shirt I had lost before. ‘Oh, I found it again. It was under my bed.’

Had I told her that I had lost it? I couldn’t remember. Still, it was a bit of a weird reaction.

‘Oh, good for you,’ Alice beamed at me, acting normal again. ‘Anyways, what do you think I should do with this piece? Should I use colour or should I leave it black and white? I’m honestly a bit afraid I will mess it up with colours,’ she showed me her beautiful drawing of an underwater landscape.

It felt as if she was deflecting, but decided not to press it. Alice said weird things all the time, commenting on things I thought she didn’t know about. She either had an extremely good memory, or a very good gossip network. Possibly both. 

‘I think that it would look amazing with colour, I am sure that you will do it justice,’ I encouraged her. I had not seen her mess up even one work before, I did not think that would happen now.

Nothing else noteworthy happened that school day, and I zoned out for most of my classes. I got scolded for not paying attention in trig by Jessica. _“If you don’t pay attention, I’ll have to explain everything to you again”_

In the evening I tried to teach Charlie how to make Bami Goreng. His vegetable cutting technique was absolutely atrocious. He looked a bit ashamed when I told him as such.

‘I’ll just have to force you to cook together with me more often, I guess. Maybe you’ll get the hang of it by the time I go off to college,’ I teased him.

He muttered something inaudible, but he didn’t flat out refuse. So, I counted it as a win. I was slowly starting to understand more of the sports Charlie liked to watch, but it was nice to have another father-daughter bonding activity.

Two weeks of bad weather passed, without Edward and I exchanging a single word.

I had been determined to not even look at him either, but that proved to be impossible. Even in his fidget state, he had a pull to him. I could feel it when he moved even a fraction closer, electric sparks traveling along my side that was closest to him.

I would have felt bad about my inability to ignore him, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he wasn’t able to fully ignore me either. I had noticed him stealing glances at me a few times, snapping his gaze back to the board whenever he saw me looking back.

We were at a strange impasse.

I did make great progress at befriending Angela and Jessica though.

We hung out at Jessica’s place once, being supplied with a lot of cookies by her mom, and being interrupted by her little sister storming into her room multiple times.

It was fun though.

We made plans to go dress shopping for the spring dance and watched a very cheesy romcom. It was one of Jessica’s favourite movies and she had seen it so many times that could talk along. She did so with a passion, acting out the different roles, which was honestly more entertaining to watch than the actual movie.

We also hung out at my house once, as we could make homework there without being interrupted. Charlie worked late most days.

Angela told us that her mom didn’t want her to have friends over, as she would have to tidy and clean everything beforehand, and she didn’t want to.

‘It isn’t even messy or dirty!’ Angela complained when she told me about it. ‘I’m pretty sure my house is cleaner and tidier than the average house, on any given day.’ 

‘That sucks,’ I offered, not sure what else to say. I could not relate to Angela’s problem. Charlie didn’t care about those things and my mom wouldn’t even notice the mess until she would be unable to walk across the room because of it.

‘I just wanted to show you my room. I’m pretty proud of how I decorated it.’

‘Maybe you can sneak us in once?’ I suggested, but she waved it away. 

‘She would find out, she always does. It’s not worth it.’

Two weeks before the spring dance, I walked into Biology and found Mike waiting at my desk.

Usually I went to stand at either his or Angela’s table before class began, as I didn’t want to spend more time with Frozone than absolutely necessary, so I was a bit surprised.

‘What’s up Mike?’ I asked him, putting down my stuff.

‘Hey Bella,’ he mumbled, suddenly not looking at me anymore. ‘Well, uhm. Jessica asked me to go to the spring dance with her, and-‘

‘That’s great!’ I beamed up at him. I was proud of Jessica that she had actually dared to ask him. That was probably why she had been so quiet in Spanish; she must have been extremely nervous.

‘I told her I would think about it.’ 

‘Why?’ I couldn’t phantom why he wouldn’t say yes.

‘Because I thought that you might ask me?’ The tone of his voice was what finally clued me in on his intensions. The past few weeks of his attentions, smiles and everything really, suddenly painted a very clear picture, one I had been incredibly blind not to see.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit._

_Poor Jessica._

I had never been in this position before, no one noticed me in Phoenix. I liked Mike, I really did. But as a friend, and I would hate to lose his friendship. I decided that playing oblivious was the best course of action.

‘Oh Mike. It’s very sweet of you to want to make sure I have a date, because you know I don’t know that many people yet. But I’m already going with Angela as friends, so you don’t have to worry about me!’ I flashed him a big smile.

‘That’s not why I-‘ he started, obviously a little frustrated.

‘Go and say yes to Jessica! It’s rude to make her wait and I think you will have a lot of fun with her,’ I pressed on. ‘You would make a great pair,’ I added just to make sure he got the message that I was not interested.

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right,’ dejected, he slinked back to his own table.

‘That wasn’t very nice of you.’ A beautiful, but very much unexpected, voice behind me commented.

I slowly turned around, giving Edward my most unimpressed look. ‘Like you would know what nice looks like.’

Was I being childish? Yes. But if he wanted to break his silent treatment now, he would have to come up with something better to say.

He had the audacity to laugh at that. He looked so handsome as he did so, that I had to remind myself that I was mad at him.

As class started, I noticed that Edward was looking at me again. But this time, he didn’t look away when I caught him.

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

He didn’t respond, continuing to stare into my eyes with an intensity that made it hard for me to focus on anything else. His eyes were very dark again, I idly wondered if that meant something.

It was at that moment that the teacher called on me, expecting me to answer a question I hadn’t even heard.

‘Eutrophication,’ came the barest of whispers from my left.

‘Sorry sir, could you please repeat the question?’ I ignored Edward, I didn’t need his help.

Mr. Banner looked at me disapprovingly, ‘Try to pay attention. I asked what causes algae blooms.’

Shit, _of course_ Edward was right. Now, if I said the correct answer, he would think he helped me.

‘Sorry sir, but that would be eutrophication.’ In the end, being in the good graces of the teacher was more important than this childish fight I was having with Edward.

‘Stubborn,’ Edward mumbled.

‘Bothersome,’ I returned.

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he thought better of it.

I wasn’t going to be the one to try to make amends this time, so we sat out the remainder of the lesson in silence. Which I should have been used to by now, but it somehow felt worse than before.

The only good thing to come out of that day, was Jessica’s phone call, telling me that Mike had said yes to going to the dance with her.

At least one person was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo, I wrote the convo with Mike like 4 month ago already, but I finally reached the point that I could use it. Which was a good thing, because I just couldn't get myself to write a lot this time. So much university stress, you wouldn't believe.


	9. Surfers and Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who were wondering: I am alive. 
> 
> I wrote this in one go, over the course of a few hours, and I did not look it over. I am taking my inpiration as it comes by now.

Even though the dark clouds hanging above Edward's head hadn’t cleared, the ones in Fork did. Or rather, it was predicted that they would, and thus, the long-anticipated trip to La Push was finally on the table again. It did push back my trip to Los Angeles with the girls though. We would only have one weekend to find our dresses, or we were screwed.

‘We are going surfing; will you join as well?’ Jessica asked me Friday at lunch.

‘I’ve never surfed before, so I think I will pass.’ I supressed a shudder, thinking about how cold the water probably was.

‘I will teach you,’ Mike sweetly offered. He had recovered from my rejection remarkably fast, now he had Jessica as a date, which pleased me greatly. I had been afraid that it would get awkward between us, which would have been a shame. Playing the clueless card had been a good bet.

‘I don’t have a wetsuit or a board,’ I deflected the offer. Mentally high fiving myself that I had though of a good reason to decline without looking weak.

‘Doesn’t your older sister still have a suit and board she isn’t using Mike?’ Angela suddenly spoke up, smiling angelically.

I shot her an angry glare, the traitor.

She just grinned at me in return.

‘She does! And since she is off to college, she won’t even notice it if we borrow it. This going to be so much fun!’ Mike was ecstatic.

‘If I catch a cold, I’m going to sneeze in your face,’ I told Angela when we walked to our next class.

It was only when I had Art later that day, that I realised I had forgotten to invite Alice. I had wanted to do that since the first time I heard of the outing, but just kept forgetting. Jacobs weird behaviour when the Cullens had been mentioned hadn’t helped. I decided to ask her anyways, it would be wrong to exclude her. If there really was any truth in the mysterious tribe legends Jacob had mentioned, she would just decline.

‘Hey Alice!’ I took my usual place next to her, piling my stuff onto my desk. ‘Do you have anything to do tomorrow?’

‘Hi Bells!’ She sent a dazzling smile my way. ‘I’m free, why do you ask?’

‘We are going to first beach at La Push with a group of people, surfing, looking at tidepools, the like. Do you want to join?’ I tried to ask as casually as possible.

‘Ah, sorry. I’m not much of a beach person, and the water is way too cold for me at this time of the year anyways. Thanks for inviting me though!’

‘That’s a shame.’ Had she just frowned or was I just imagining things? Her excuse was reasonable enough at least. Damnit. They did not give their secrets freely it seemed.

Saturday came and I cycled over to Mikes parent’s shop, where everyone was gathering. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but it was definitely warmer than it had ever been since I had come to Forks.

‘Bella!’ Jessica waved happily at me, when she saw me coming. ‘I saved you a spot in the car with us!’

‘Thanks! I know I’m probably too late to call shotgun, but can I sit in front? I will get very carsick otherwise,’ I asked the group a bit sheepishly. I wouldn’t feel all too good after driving anyways, but if I could crack open the window and look at the road, it would be a lot less at least.

Jessica looked disappointed for a second, before schooling her face into a smile. ‘Yeah sure, you can have my spot.’

‘You’re an angel,’ I gave her a hug.

I realised why she had looked disappointed when it turned out to be Mikes car we were going in. Whelp, nothing I could do about that now.

In a stroke of bad luck, Mikes sister’s wetsuit actually fitted. Now I didn’t have any excuse to not go into the frigid water.

‘Come on Bella,’ Jessica impatiently pulled me out of the minivan we had changed our clothes in.

It was at that point I saw Angela standing on the beach, grinning at me, still fully dressed.

‘Wait, you’re not even going to surf yourself?!’ I felt betrayed.

‘No, I don’t like swimming all that much. But you enjoy yourself.’ She patted me on the shoulder and walked off with the others that were smart enough not to subject themselves to the icy torture.

‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be fun!’ Jessica practically bounced along.

‘For you maybe, you get to see me lose my balance every tenth of a second,’ I tried to look grumpy but her happy energy was contagious. It was fun to try something new, even if I just knew I was going to be terrible at it.

And terrible at it I was. I never managed to stand up for more than a second, before tumbling into the water. Jessica and Mike all did their best trying to teach me, but it was to no avail.

At least the water was less cold than I had imagined and the wetsuit did a good job of keeping me almost warm.

In the end, I just contented with lazily paddling along while my friends showed off.

I got why Jessica liked surfing, she was great at it.

I made my way out of the water when Jessica was too distracted with flirting with Mike to notice me slipping away.

Stripping out of the cold wet wetsuit was the worst part, but soon I was dry and fully clothed again. My feet were still two clumps of ice, and probably would stay that way for a little while.

Angela handed me a sandwich the moment I joined the land crew. ‘You must be hungry after all that.’

‘Are you trying to appease me with food?’ I narrowed my eyes at her but took the sandwich anyways. ‘Because it’s working.’

‘You’re just in time to go to the tidepools with us.’ She slipped a snickers bar in my pocket with a wink.

‘Nice!’

‘How was surfing?’ One of the boys I didn’t remember the name of, asked me with a mean grin. He had definitely seen me fail.

It was to my surprise that one of Lauren’s friends came to my defence.

‘Do you want to know because you were too pussy to try it out yourself Connor?’ she asked with a sugary voice.

The boy turned red and turned away, mumbling something under his breath.

I sent the girl a grateful smile, but she didn’t even look at me as she linked her arm through Laurens and walked off. They were apparently not joining the tidepool group.

Sometimes I just didn’t get people.

The tide pools were beautiful.

Of course, I almost slipped and fell into one of them, but Angela caught me just in time. 

When I thanked her, she mumbled something about thanking Alice instead, which confused me greatly.

But there was a beautiful little blue fish that chose that moment to show itself, and I forgot to ask about it.

‘How nice it must be to live in such a perfect little world,’ I sighed as I watched the anemones sway.

‘Yeah, it is that I don’t like water, but these pools seem so peaceful. I could look at them forever.’

It wasn’t quite forever, but we sat there in companiable silence for the better part of an hour.

The others screamed and laughed in the distance, they caught a big crab at some point, which they showed to us. All in all, I was having a great time. It was just a shame Alice hadn’t come along as well.

When we returned to the beach, the surfers had left the water and a lot more people had joined. They had made a fire in the middle of a circle of driftwood logs, and were eating and chatting loudly. The group was almost twice as big as we had left them. The black hair of the newcomers clued me in that they were teenagers from the reservation.

We were introduced when we entered the circle. I quickly looked around and to my delight I found Jacob amongst the people on the logs.

He caught my eye and made space for me so I could sit down next to him.

‘Hey Jacob, you came!’

‘Hey Bells, want a smore?’ He was holding a stick with marshmallows above the fire.

‘Ohh yes please, wait, is the fire blue?’ I frowned.

‘Yep, it’s the salt in the driftwood,’ Jacob explained. 

‘Cool.’ I stuck my feet out to the fire, they would finally warm up now.

One of the oldest looking reservation boys named Sam introduced their side, but I didn’t pay attention. I knew I wouldn’t remember the other names anyway.

Mike came over with Angela to hand me more sandwiches and a soda, but Mike couldn’t join me on the log as Angela claimed the last spot available. It forced him to sit next to Jessica. Angela and I shared a grin when we saw that.

‘You two already know each other?’ Angela asked when we had devoured our sandwiches.

‘Basically, since I was born,’ Jacob grinned.

‘Our dads are good friends,’ I explained, ‘and Jacob here is going to teach me how to drive my motorcycle!’

‘Oh, that’s so cool!’

I saw Lauren looking over at us, from across the fire, she seemed all but happy seeing me get attention from Jacob. For a second I was confused about that, before I remembered that Jacob was a very good-looking dude. We didn’t see each other that way, and I doubted we ever would, but Lauren didn’t know that.

I took the smore Jacob had made for me and blissfully bit into it. Jacob set out to make a second one for Angela.

‘Hey Bella,’ Lauren unexpectedly called.

‘Yeah?’

‘I was just saying to Tyler that it was a shame that the Cullens aren’t here today. Didn’t anyone think to invite them?’ She carefully studied my face as she unconvincingly tried to sound concerned.

‘Alice said she doesn’t like the beach too much,’ I shrugged.

‘What about Edward?’ She asked. What was she getting at?

Before I could answer, Sam spoke up, his voice almost too deep for his age.

‘The Cullens don’t come here,’ he said it with such finality that Lauren didn’t press the issue anymore.

I wondered why she thought I would invite Edward, I thought it was common knowledge we didn’t mesh well together.

Sam’s words did remind me about Jacob had said before though, about the Quileutes legends.

‘Hey Cob, shall we go for a walk along the waterline? I want to find a nice rock.’ My excuse was pathetic, and Angela gave me a bit of a weird look, but Jacob stood up readily enough.

‘Only if you never call me Cob again,’ he held his hand out to help me up.

‘You drive a hard bargain my friend,’ I sighed, but took his hand nonetheless.

‘So, what’s this really about?’ He asked the moment we were out of earshot of the circle.

‘Was I that obvious?’

He didn’t even deign to answer and I sighed, linking arms.

‘It’s about how Sam reacted to the name of the Cullens. You promised me to tell me the full story last time,’ I reminded him.

‘Oh right,’ he led me to a driftwood tree, so we could sit down. ‘You can’t tell anyone else about it alright, I’m already breaking rules as it is,’ he warned me.

‘I swear it on my motorcycle,’ I placed a hand on my heart.

He laughed at that.

‘Good. Alright, where do I start,’ he trailed of, as he stared into the waves.

‘I guess I should start with another legend, about the origin of my people.’ He started to talk about how their tribe supposedly descended from wolves, how their ancestors could turn into wolves and how it was illegal to hunt them still.

He had a pleasant telling voice and I was wholly emersed in his story. Then suddenly his voice dropped ominously.

‘And then there are the stories of the Cold ones, these stories are just as old as the ones about the wolves. A very long time ago, a big part of our tribe was wiped out by these creatures, before our warriors could kill them. Ever since that happened the people that can transform into wolves and the cold ones are mortal enemies.’ He laughed a little when he saw how into the story I was.

‘What are the cold ones?’

‘Blood drinkers. You would know them as _vampires_.’ He wiggled his fingers at the ‘vampires’ part, he clearly didn’t take the tribe legends very seriously. I tried to look like I didn’t think much of the stories either.

‘But here is where it gets strange. There are far more recent stories about the cold ones, ones that only go back to when my own great grandfather was a tribal elder. He supposedly met some of these creatures, but they were different from their kin. They claimed that they were not dangerous and intended no harm. They did not hunt humans but lived of the blood of animals. My Great grandfather made a treaty with them, they would not come onto our land, and we wouldn’t reveal their true nature to people outside of our tribe. Even though they claimed to be harmless, we could not trust them.’

‘So, what do the Cullens have to do with the Cold ones from yesteryear?’ I asked a bit impatient.

‘The clan we made the treaty with, were called the Cullens,’ Jacob revealed.

‘Wow,’ I breathed, ‘that is one hell of a coincidence. Do you think that these Cullens are actually related to the Cullens from your story?’ I had gotten goosebumps, could this be the secret Edward was so closely guarding?

‘According to the elders, they are the exact same ones. They are with two more than the last time they were here, but the name of their leader, Carlisle, is the same.’ Jacob sighed as he looked out over the water.

‘That’s why a lot of people from the reservation, especially the older people, won’t go to the hospital where Carlisle works. That is why my own dad doesn’t want anything to do with the Cullens. Your dad got pretty mad at mine when he found out that he disliked the Cullens without ever meeting them, not that Billy ever told him the story, but I doubt it would have made a difference.’

I was silent for a second as I rubbed my arms, the goosebumps still present.

‘Do you think that we are a bunch of superstitious natives now?’ He smiled wryly.

‘No. The coincidence is staggering, I would probably think twice about interacting with people I’ve been told are vampires since I was little,’ I said. Especially since the Cullens could very well be vampires, they weren’t normal humans for sure.

Jacob looked a bit relieved at that.

‘Thanks for telling me. I understand why you would be a bit reluctant to share with anyone from outside the reservation,’ I said honestly.

‘Yeah. Officially I have broken the old treaty I think,’ he laughed at that. It clearly didn’t weigh on his conscience.

I silently vowed to never tell anyone that Jacob had told me about them anyway. You could never be too sure.

‘Now, let’s search for a rock.’ He jumped from the tree.

‘What?’ I got pulled out of my thoughts, and was quite confused as to why we had to go look for a rock.

‘Your cover story!’

‘Oh, right.’ I facepalmed myself as I jumped down as well.

‘You would make a terrible spy.’ He laughed at me.

‘The worst, I hate lying.’

I never did find a rock, as Jessica and Mike came walking up to us in the middle of our search for a nice one.

‘We’re packing up. Rain is coming,’ Jessica told us.

‘Your friends are also leaving,’ Mike told Jacob, not sounding as friendly as he normally did.

Did something happen with the reservation kids while we were gone? But why would he be annoyed with Jacob then? He had been with me the whole time.

‘Alright, thanks for telling me,’ Jacob looked vaguely amused. ‘See you soon Bells?’

‘Yeah! Now that it’s getting warmer, my dad is probably allowing me to take those lesson soon as well.’ I smiled.

‘Great, say hi to Charlie for me, alright?’ He bend over to give me a kiss on the cheek, something pretty uncharacteristic for him.

‘And you to Billy,’ I cocked my head at him, confused.

He just smiled brightly at me and then at Mike, before walking off.

We had only just barely piled into the cars, when the first drops of rain began to fall.


End file.
